Mombartz → Ideas → Urtak

Urtak was a collaborative polling service, started in New York in 2008. Publishers embedded a widget on a page, and readers answered a stream of short questions with Yes, No or Don't Care. Readers could also add their own yes/no questions to the same poll, so a single question could grow into a large poll written by its audience. TheBlaze ran one about food stamps that started with one question and grew to over 88 questions and nearly 200,000 responses.

Publishers used it alongside or instead of a comment box. Answering was quicker than writing a comment, which mattered on mobile, and the answers gave publishers numbers to work with: results for every question, and cross-tabulation between questions, such as how people who said Yes to one question answered another. The service shut down on 20 September 2013, after more than 13,000 polls, 77,000 questions and 22 million responses.

Four embedded Urtak widgets: the default white stream, the stream with results, a wood theme and a sponsored Coca-Cola theme — Embeddable widgets, including publisher themes and a sponsored question

The Urtak widget from the pre-redesign version through v1 and v2 to the final design — The widget's evolution, from before the redesign to the final version

Urtak feature illustrations: community questions, customizable, any platform, moderation, email reports, crosstab, Facebook and Twitter, algorithm, robust, language — Feature illustrations

Urtak results as posters: The Daily Beast's 400 billion debt deal map and the Cooper Union free-tuition "Free Drinks?" chart — Poll results turned into graphics, for The Daily Beast and for Cooper Union

The widget below is a rebuild of the 2012 design in HTML, CSS and SVG, made from the original Photoshop file. Answer a question and its result turns into a pie on the same card while the next one slides in. Asking, logging in and the info drawer all work; nothing is saved.