Glossary
Ranking question
Asking respondents to order options by preference.
A ranking question asks respondents to put options in order — most to least important, first to last choice. Unlike rating each item independently, ranking forces trade-offs: a respondent cannot call everything a top priority, which produces sharper prioritisation data.
That forced discrimination is the point and the cost. It is cognitively heavier than a rating, and it scales badly — ranking ten items is exhausting and noisy. Keep the list short (around four to six), and if you only care about the leaders, ask for the top three rather than a full ordering.
Analysis differs from ratings too: you typically report average rank or the share of respondents placing each option first, not a mean score. On touch devices, drag-to-reorder must have an accessible alternative such as up/down controls — see form accessibility.