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Least Fill

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Least Fill

When and Why to Use

Use this to dynamically select a subset of items that have the fewest responses (i.e. are underrepresented) in a given quota. Ideal for:

  • Ensuring even coverage across a large set of items (e.g., brands, ads, concepts)
  • Avoiding over-exposure or over-sampling of frequently selected items
  • Dynamically balancing stimulus presentation

This does not enforce quotas or terminate users. It simply ranks items by current counts and returns the least-filled ones.

How It Works
  • Takes a list of items
  • Checks which ones are least filled in the named quota
  • Returns the top N least-filled items
  • Often paired with multi_select_question or select_question
Configuration Options
ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
numberintyesNumber of items to return
from_listList[Any]yesFull list of items to choose from
quotastryesName of the quota this list belongs to
Example Code
from survey import Survey

s = Survey(**globals())

brand_list = [
    'Acura', 'Alfa Romeo', 'Aston Martin', 'Audi', 'Bentley', 'BMW',
    'Bugatti', 'Buick', 'Cadillac', 'Chevrolet', 'Chrysler', 'Citroen',
    'Dodge', 'Ferrari', 'Fiat', 'Ford', 'Geely', 'Genesis', 'GMC',
    'Honda', 'Hyundai'
    # ...and so on
]

brands = s.get_least_filled(
    number=10,
    from_list=brand_list,
    quota="Brand familiarity"
)

familiar_brands = s.multi_select_question(
    question="Which of the following car brands have you heard of?",
    options=brands
)
Notes
  • This is often used for rotating large brand or product lists evenly
  • Use set_quota() if you want to enforce a fixed distribution with termination
  • Items must be trackable via the named quota so that response counts can be compared