Progressive Matrix is AYTM's unique solution of a very common grid question type. It's designed to organize similar questions in a matrix, choose the best settings for the job to produce the optimal experience for your respondents, and read the results on our stats page.
The noble idea behind any matrix question is to save respondents time by grouping similar questions in a table under the same header. It saves time because once they read a question, they don't have to re-read it for every item they're rating. It sounds great in theory, but it takes a significant cognitive toll on respondents. Researchers often don't realize that before long they're putting a few dozen labels and a hundred boxes in front of respondents, asking them to make a hundred decisions. Our brains are good at capturing the most important item out of a few options in front of us, but we start lagging when we're asked to consider over seven items, let alone a hundred combinations.
No wonder respondents typically hate progressive matrix questions and try to find the shortest way out! Unfortunately, this can compromise the quality of your data. Since we cherish the user experience here at AYTM, we chose to solve this problem by developing our own version of the Progressive Matrix question type.
Our Progressive Matrix solves the usual user issues by focusing respondents' attention on one column or one row at a time, a process we call 'progressive flow'. This way all their attention is focused on one entity and a manageable number of answer choices. After selections are made for this small manageable cluster of answer options, they can move on to the next column or row (depending on how you set it up) and choose among the same answer choices for the next item on the list. They can come back and make edits to the earlier items they selected while they're on the page, but this approach allows us to take full advantage of the constant headers and answer choices, and walk respondents through the answer clusters without overwhelming them.
Another set of problems we've fixed is the User Interface, or UI. Classic answer grids have uneven sizing of columns and lines, dictated by the length of their labels. Some are too long and take a few lines, stretching that row or column and creating an extra visual emphasis for it which may introduce additional bias to your data collection.
When you add Progressive Matrix question in the editor we'll start you off with three matrix sub-questions and two matrix answer options. You need to have at least two items in each list for the question type to work, but you can have up to seven. Going beyond seven might be risky, especially if you think about how your question will appear on respondents' mobile devices, but it is still possible - please reach out if you would like to discuss our options beyond DIY.
The most important thing about these two lists - the sub-questions and the answers - is that the items in the first list should be treated as the entities you're testing, and the items in the second list should be treated as the answer options, because this is how we will present the data on your stats page. In the example below, we put famous fast food restaurants in the first list and types of popular food in the second. Each restaurant on the stats page will have its own chart with breakdown of food types popularity, in addition to the aggregate stats. If we were to swap the lists here, we'd be dealing with a very puzzling series of charts titled "Burgers" with restaurants as answer options below, which isn't exactly the most useful.