Dot voting is one of the simplest prioritization activities that use tokens to vote on the importance of ideas. Dot stickers are used most often, but if your resources are limited, you can also draw checkmarks with pens.

While very versatile, dot voting is particularly useful for:

• Choosing amongst several potential research efforts
• Assessing user insights to explore further
• Narrowing down design ideas
• Ranking topics in a discussion or workshop
• Gathering information before creating an impact-effort matrix

Dot voting is a more serious and flexible exercise than the $100 test. You can assign different values to the dots (1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices) or use differently colored dots for different criteria (e.g., red for impact to the user and green for return on investment).

To organize the exercise, have the list of options on the board and give all participants the same number of tokens. Establish the criteria people should vote based on, and let them silently place their tokens.

Once everyone has voted, calculate and discuss the outcome. If you still have too many options, narrow down and revote. This time, give everyone the same number of votes but only allow votes on the top choices.^[1]