Thing 7

Thing 7 - Doodle

I set up a purely theoretical trip to the cinema to see the final Harry Potter film during the first week of its general release (I confess that I will be going to see it in actuality as well as in theory), and invited a few friends to join me. The creation of the poll was simplicity itself, and the responses it received provided a useful demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of Doodle.

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." ~ Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Doodle handily collates results on your behalf, so I could instantly tell which was the best time for us to go simply by looking at the bottom row - the only time when all five of us were available.

On the other hand, Doodle seems to be easily corruptible. Perhaps you can alter this if you create an account and change your poll's settings, but the default setting lets anyone reply to the poll and post comments, without using e.g. e-mail authorisation. This means that any person can enter someone else's name and reply on their behalf, or leave a scurrilous or abusive comment.

The times I entered as choices effectively selected themselves - they are the times of all 13 screenings of the film in 2D at the Arts Picturehouse from this coming Friday. 13 may seem a small number, but even so when I loaded the page after creating the poll it displayed the message 'This poll is bigger than usual' and hid some of the options. If one wanted to offer 20 or 30 or 40 options, for instance, to schedule a single meeting at some point in the next few weeks, it might become an unwieldy poll to navigate, and e-mail might turn out to be a preferable medium.

Still, quibbles aside, Doodle seems very user-friendly, and I can envisage it being the ideal tool to use in certain situations.