Measuring needs and preferences

Finding out how many citizens have which needs, and what their preferences are between alternative options (e.g. through surveys, opinion polls, preferenda).

• • Some consultations set out to find what particular groups of people need.
  • Others try to find out what preferences people have between different options.
  • In either case, apart from discussion systems, we often use surveys and votes to quantify the needs or preferences.
  • computers can help send out surveys, collect the results, and analyse them. They can also be used to run a quick vote in a meeting, or by subtle analysis of preferences, find underlying consensus between oponents.

Online survey cycle

Finding out how many citizens have which needs, and what their preferences are between alternative options (e.g. through surveys, opinion polls, preferenda).

E-polling/E-voting

Here we are not talking about voting for representatives, but choosing options on issues.

• • voting software: Deborda
  • wireless voting system: Xtol, vPad
  • SMS voting

Online surveys

• • an online survey is designed to replace traditional paper questionnaires.
  • Survey example 1: mobile phone Internet service, [http://www.e-consultation.org/phpsurveyor/index.php?sid=1 example 2: various types of survey question