Why are the possible answers “Yes” or “Not Applicable”?
We have already received quite a bit of feedback about our organization, site, and service, which we love. Thank You so much! Oftentimes people ask why a DIMS – Does It Make Sense?® Score question is worded the way it is – or scored the way it is. So we created the DIMS SCORE® blog series so we can take you through the journey of thinking that lead to each one of the questions you see in our Gift Surveys today. This post discusses why kids can only answer “Yes” or Not Applicable” to a number of questions.
Does this toy get you outside? Do you need this piece of sports equipment to try out for a team? Do you have a sibling or cousin who could wear this outfit after you? All of these are examples of questions where the possible answers are “Yes” or “Not Applicable”. When we began developing the DIMS SCORE® calculation, we started out with Yes or No answers. But we quickly realized there were times when a question really wasn’t applicable. For example only children don’t have siblings. So, we moved to providing three possible answers: Yes or No or “Not Applicable”. Then we ran our first pilot – and guess what? Children very quickly discovered that answering “No” reduced their DIMS SCORE®. They were gaming the scoring system before the end of the first day! How smart was that? We needed to make a change.
Then we ran our first pilot – and guess what? Children very quickly discovered that answering No reduced their DIMS SCORE® ®. They were gaming the scoring system before the end of the first day! How smart was that? We had to make a change.
So now, because hardly anyone ever answers “no”, we have very few questions left where a No answer is a possibility. As you might expect, generally speaking, if you answer Yes to a question, your DIMS SCORE® ® goes up. If you answer N/A the metrics change (on the backend) and that question no longer enters into your score’s calculation. The beauty of our pdf summaries, which are automatically generated when children complete a Gift Survey, is that they illustrate all the math and thinking that kids have gone through – including every single DIMS SCORE® ® question they answered. So you will see exactly how the young person in your life arrived at the decision that the gift they would like might make sense, when you receive their pdf.
If you have any other questions, any at all, as you explore and learn about our site, please write to us. As we have just launched, we know we can improve and expand upon our offering. We are currently collecting development suggestions for Version 2.0 and would love to add your feedback. Help us help you teach your kids to think before they buy – we really believe it’s one of the best gifts you can give them!
