Crosstabs

Overview

Crosstabs gives you one table per question — a row for every answer option, a column for every product. It's where you go when the headline number isn't enough and you want the whole shape of a question.

Say you asked how likely people are to buy. Elsewhere you'd get one score per product. In Crosstabs you get the full spread — what share of people picked each point on the scale, per product, with Box, Mean and Median rows underneath.

Yes/No and open-text questions never get a crosstab table. Read those in Explore.

Throughout this article, Products and Product Groups are the labels you see on a physical product study. On a concept study they read Concepts and Concept Groups; on a survey-only study, Surveys and Survey Groups.

Where to Find Crosstabs

Go to Insights and open the Crosstabs tab, just after Scorecard. There's also a Crosstabs page on a multi-project dashboard, where the columns come from every project on it.

Crosstabs is there from the moment your project is created, and the numbers update as responses arrive — no waiting for your surveys to close. While collection is still running, a banner above Insights reminds you the results may be incomplete.

Don't see the tab? Ask your account manager.

What's in a Table

Each table covers one question, and the question's wording is the title.

• The first row is your base — Total Participants, the number every percentage in that column is measured against.
• Then one row per answer option, scale point or age bucket. The values are percentages of the people who answered that question in that column.
• A Sigma row totals those percentages — 100%, or more where people could pick several answers.
• Scale questions add summary rows at the bottom — Box, Mean and Median. Numeric entry questions add Mean and Median.

A cell showing - means nobody in that column answered the question. It isn't a zero.

Scoping Your Tables

What your tables count is set in the Settings sidebar, and two selectors decide the columns:

• Survey — which survey's responses you're reading. Crosstabs and Explore are the only tabs that also offer Respondent Profile.
• Products — individual products, or a Product Group read as a single column.

Segments Multiply Your Columns

This is the one thing that catches people out. Selecting a segment doesn't add columns to your table — it repeats every product column inside every segment. Three products and two segments give you six columns, not five.

Segments also replace your all-participants view rather than sitting beside it — to get the overall picture back, clear your segments.

Tip: Add segments a couple at a time.

Reading the Marks on a Value

Every column carries a letter after its label — Product X (A). A value significantly higher than another column's is marked with that column's letter, so 85% B beat column B. Only the higher value is marked, so a cell with no letters may just be the lower side of a pair.

Median rows are never tested. For what uppercase and lowercase mean, the other reasons a value comes back unmarked, and what each metric measures, see Significance and Metrics.

Preference and Ranking Questions

On most questions the useful comparison is between columns. On a preference or ranking question it's between the answer choices themselves — whether people really do prefer one option over another.

These questions get a second kind of mark. The choices are numbered — 1. Vanilla, 2. Chocolate — and a choice significantly preferred over another carries that choice's number, so 38% #3,4 was preferred over choices 3 and 4. A note under the table confirms the test ran and at which confidence level, so a table with no marks still tells you something: the differences weren't large enough to call.

Ranking questions are counted with one rule applied first: only the option a participant ranked #1 counts. Ranks 2 and below aren't counted anywhere in the table, so the rows show each group's genuine top priority and add up to 100%. For the whole distribution, see the question in Explore.

Which questions are treated this way is set up by your Highlight team. If one you'd expect to see tested isn't marked, ask your account manager.

Downloading Your Tables

Download CSV sits at the top of the page, to the right of the title. It exports every table on screen, scoped exactly as the screen is — the same Settings sidebar choices, including both confidence levels, Full Completes Only and Read Position. The base row is renamed Total Respondents in the file.

The column letters come through. The answer-choice numbers don't, so read those comparisons on screen.

If the button is greyed out, your product selection isn't valid for the survey you're on. Reselect at least one product and it comes back.

Related

• Significance and Metrics — what every mark means, and how to set your confidence level
• Scorecard — one metric per question, every question in one table
• Explore — where Yes/No and open-text questions live, and where a ranking question's full distribution is
• Segments — build the groups that become your columns

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