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Axis closeness

Tells the taker where they already stand on one axis, once the reading is safe to state.

Decision: ⚪ idea

Design: Figma - single axis | double axis

Context

A passive card shown between questions. It names one axis, draws the taker's current position on it, and says what that position means in one sentence - see checkpoints for the shared card frame and event model for what makes it fire.

Two variants, one per axis type:

  • Single axis - one orientation, filled from zero. "Your radicalism is high."
  • Double axis - two opposing orientations, filled towards the leading side. "Your euroscepticism is greater than your federalism."
Single axis Double axis
Single axis checkpoint Double axis checkpoint

How it behaves:

  • Reuses the result chart - the same single-axis and double-axis modules the result screen uses, so mid-quiz and final look like one product.
  • Copy is lead-in plus statement - a grey opener that signals certainty, then the finding in bold. "We already know this - your radicalism is high."
  • Fires on confidence, not on progress - the axis needs enough answers behind it and a clear enough lean. A near-tie has nothing worth saying.
  • Once per axis - the same axis never gets two cards in one quiz, and the event model picks which axis wins when several qualify.
  • Passive - no input, just continue, plus the checkpoint opt-out every card carries.

Opportunity

  • Turns progress into payoff - eleven questions in, the taker gets a real finding about themselves instead of a progress bar, which is the whole gamification bet.
  • Teaches the vocabulary early - by the time the result screen shows a dozen axes, the taker has already met one and knows how to read it.
  • Cheapest checkpoint we have - it needs only the scores already being computed, no aggregates, no extra questions, no author configuration.
  • Works in any quiz - every quiz has axes, so this is the one checkpoint that never needs a fallback.

Risk

  • An early reading can be overturned - "your radicalism is high" at question 11 against a balanced final result makes us look wrong rather than early.
  • It can change the answers that follow - telling someone what they are mid-quiz invites them to answer consistently with the label instead of honestly, which is a data quality problem, not just a UX one.
  • Comparative phrasing confuses - "more eurosceptic than federalist" is easy to read as "you are a eurosceptic", which is not what the axis says.
  • Choosing the axis is a ranking problem - a card about a dull axis burns the slot a striking one deserved.
  • Wording carries judgement - "high radicalism" reads as a verdict, and on a political axis a verdict is exactly what we cannot be seen to hand out.