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Design Protocolsinterface documentation

Ordinal Bin 

The Ordinal Bin interface
Type
Name Interpreter
Creates
Ordinal attribute data on a single node type
Uses prompts
Yes
Configure in
  • Architect Classic
  • Architect
Run in
  • Interviewer Classic
  • Interviewer
  • Fresco

Requires protocol schema 1 or later.

The Ordinal Bin is a name interpreter Interface that captures ordinal data on the alters in a participant's network. When using the Ordinal Bin, participants drag and drop alters one-by-one into parallel bins denoting values on an ordinal scale. Once placed, participants can move alters from one bin to another.

Configuring Ordinal Bin

A single node type is selectable per screen. This screen supports filtering those nodes by their attributes.

An Ordinal Bin screen can include multiple prompts, each of which relates to a single ordinal variable.

Customize built-in wording

When Require every node to be placed is switched on in the stage's Placing nodes section, participants cannot continue until every node is in a bin. The notice they see when they try is under Nodes not yet placed in the Customize built-in wording section of the stage editor. Network Canvas fills in starting wording, in every language it has wording for, and you can change and translate it like any other text (see Words Network Canvas supplies). The notice can show the name of the stage's node type, inserted as a pill with the field's piped text button.

Best Practices

Use this Interface to collect ordinal or interval scale data on alters. Although a Likert Scale can be added as an input control on other interfaces, the drag and drop functionality on the Ordinal Bin provides a tactile method to capturing these data that is engaging for participants.

Try to Avoid

Due to size affordances, avoid using scales of more than six bins on this Interface. Larger scales cause bin labels to be difficult to read and the other visual components on the Interface become compromised.

Bin labels can be a good deal longer than a word or two — a short sentence is fine. Each label shrinks, a step at a time, to fit the space its bin has rather than being cut off mid-word, and a screen reader always reads the whole label. That shrinking has a smallest size, though: a label long enough to overflow its bin even at that size is clipped, which is most likely with a larger scale or on a small screen. Check your longest label in preview at the size participants will use. Labels can use bold and italic text for emphasis. Short labels stay larger and are easier to read at a glance.

Resist using this Interface to collect nominal data that would be more suitable for capture on the Categorical Bin.