Janus

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What is this?

Janus settles a group decision. Instead of arguing it out or everyone saying “I don’t mind”, each person is made to choose, a few options at a time, what they want most and what they want least. Janus adds up those choices to show what the group wants and where you disagree.

How it works

  1. 01

    Type the decision on the home page, and a place if it depends on one. Janus works out what to rank: real options (restaurants near you, say) or the things that matter (pace, budget, interests).

    The home page with “Where should we eat on Friday night?” and “Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur” typed in
  2. 02

    You land on the poll page with two people ready. Tap a name to change it, and use “+ Add a person” for more, up to ten. All of this is optional.

  3. 03

    Everyone in the same place: tap Start under your name and answer on this device, then pass it on. Not together: tap “Send link” and paste each person’s link into any chat.

    The poll page showing two people, each with a Start button, a Send link button and a code
  4. 04

    Each person sees a series of short screens. On every screen they pick the one option they want most and the one they want least, out of the options shown on that screen.

    A survey screen with four restaurants, one marked Most and one marked Least
  5. 05

    As people finish, the poll page fills in a graph of what the group wants and where people differ.

    The results graph: one row per restaurant, one dot per person, a shaded bar for the gap and a dark tick for the group score

Reading the graph

Each row is one item and each dot is one person. A dot on the far right means that person always picked it as the one they want most; on the far left, always as the one they want least. The shaded bar runs from the least keen person to the keenest, so a long bar is a disagreement and a cluster of dots is agreement. The dark tick is the group score. Tap an item’s name for its details.

The maths

An item’s score is the number of times it was picked most, minus the number of times it was picked least, divided by how many times the person saw it. That gives a number from −1 to +1. The group score is the average across people. Two items closer together than the margin shown on the poll page could be chance, and Janus calls those level.

Good to know

The list of items locks once the first person starts, because changing it would break their answers. You can review or edit it on the poll page before then. For places, items marked “found in search” appeared in a live web search; check opening hours yourself before you go.

Start a poll →