Graduated Signal

A graduated signal is a polling mechanism that captures response along a continuous or ordinal scale rather than a binary yes/no. Graduated signals produce richer distribution data than binary polling — they surface cluster points, outliers, and spread. Fist-of-Five is the most widely-used graduated signal in workshop-craft contexts (five-point scale). Likert-scale polls, thumbs-up-middle-thumbs-down, and stoplight colors (red-yellow-green) are variants of the graduated-signal pattern. The pattern's value depends on explicit anchors for each position so participants' responses are comparable; graduated signals without anchors produce noise rather than signal.