Scenes (vs. questions)
A scene is vDynamiq’s replacement for a survey question. Where a traditional survey has a row in a grid, vDynamiq has a scene: a narrated, visual moment that measures one metric and captures the respondent’s answer through a fitting interaction. Scenes are where the story-led idea stops being a philosophy and becomes the actual thing a respondent experiences.
What a scene is made of
Section titled “What a scene is made of”Each scene measures a single metric and is assembled from parts that work together:
- Content — the question itself and how it’s framed inside the story (the narrative context plus the actual thing being asked).
- Interaction — how the respondent answers: tap to select, rank, rate, speak, type, and more. There are 15 interaction types.
- Options — the specific cards, items, statements, or scale the respondent chooses from, when the interaction needs them.
- Image — a generated background that sets the moment visually.
- Narration — a generated voice-over that carries the story, produced in each of the study’s languages.
- Answer hint — a short on-screen line coaching the respondent on how to answer, matched to the interaction (for example, “Tap a number from 0 to 10”).
A scene, in other words, is a small self-contained experience: it looks like a moment in a story, and underneath it is one precise measurement.
A scene has a variant per persona
Section titled “A scene has a variant per persona”A scene isn’t a single fixed screen — it carries a variant for each persona (that is, for each study group). Every variant measures the same metric on the same scale, but its framing, imagery, and narration differ so the moment feels native to each segment.
One scene, one metric, one variant per persona — different stories, identical measurement.
The five-step scene editor
Section titled “The five-step scene editor”You review and refine every scene through a five-step editor. Each step controls one part of the scene, in the order you’d naturally build it:
Every part is yours to adjust: regenerate an asset you don’t like, edit the wording, swap the interaction, or refine the options. Nothing is locked in before launch. See Scenes editor for the full walkthrough and Generating assets for how images, narration, and hints are produced.
Dynamic source piping
Section titled “Dynamic source piping”Scenes can pipe earlier answers into later moments — for example, referring back to an option the respondent chose earlier so the story acknowledges what they just said. This is called dynamic source piping, and it’s what keeps a story-led survey feeling like one continuous narrative rather than a set of unrelated questions. A respondent who names a brand in an early scene might see that brand referenced by name in a later one. See Dynamic source piping.
Why scenes beat questions
Section titled “Why scenes beat questions”- Context over abstraction. A concrete, familiar moment elicits more honest, considered answers than a bare scale floating out of context.
- Engagement and completion. Narrated, visual moments have momentum; respondents move through them rather than grinding down a grid, so more people finish.
- Relevance with comparability. Per-persona variants tailor the framing while the measurement stays identical across segments.
- One idea per screen. Each scene is a single focused moment, which reduces the fatigue and straight-lining that quietly flatten grid data.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Interaction types — the 15 ways a scene can be answered.
- Scenes editor — editing scenes step by step.
- Constructs & metrics — the measurement a scene captures.
- Responses & aggregation — where scene answers go.