About

Sonar has been developed by Boost New Media. We are a Wellington based web design company with a focus on the user experience.

While planning and developing Sonar we looked at e-democracy sites around the world. We found that very few of them had been designed with the end-user – the panelists – in mind. Most were uninviting and hard to use.

We believe online consultation works best when you empathise with and understand your audience. We designed Sonar with a users-first approach, to help you engage the widest possible audience with respect and dignity.

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Sonar information sheet

Great news! We have put together a PDF information sheet to make it easier for you to share the great news about Sonar. You can download it from the link below.

Sonar-eConsultation.pdf [1MB]
Police wiki victim of its own success

Last week the New Zealand Police launched a wiki inviting comment and ideas from the public on the new Policing Act.

The response to the wiki was overwhelming with the wiki being suspended after 3 days of being open to the public. It’s fantastic to see the Police embracing such and open and democratic process. A brief look around the wiki quickly threw up examples of irreverence and satire. It’s disappointing that the public haven’t taken full advantage of the opportunity presented. Congratulations to the New Zealand Police on their willingness to engage the public.

Continue reading…
New features - Likert scale questions and Spider charts

This month we have added two great new features to Sonar, Likert scale questions and Spider charts.

Likert scales allow you to gather subjective and objective information from your audience. Sonar enables you to easily create Likert scales of as many points as needed. A default set can be set to make creating your Likert questions quick and easy.

To display the answers graphically we have adopted spider charts (sometimes referred to as radar charts). Log in to the online demo to see how they work and try your own. We look forward to your feedback on these great new features.

New feature - Audit trail

To make it easier to meet the e-Govt web guidelines we have recently added an audit trail to Sonar. This enables administrators to easily see when a change was made and by whom. If needed these changes can be “rolled back” to an earlier version.

We are adding exciting new features over the next month and welcome your feedback.

Police wiki victim of its own success

Last week the New Zealand Police launched a wiki inviting comment and ideas from the public on the new Policing Act.

The response to the wiki was overwhelming with the wiki being suspended after 3 days of being open to the public. It’s fantastic to see the Police embracing such and open and democratic process. A brief look around the wiki quickly threw up examples of irreverence and satire. It’s disappointing that the public haven’t taken full advantage of the opportunity presented. Congratulations to the New Zealand Police on their willingness to engage the public.

Continue reading…
New features - Likert scale questions and Spider charts

This month we have added two great new features to Sonar, Likert scale questions and Spider charts.

Likert scales allow you to gather subjective and objective information from your audience. Sonar enables you to easily create Likert scales of as many points as needed. A default set can be set to make creating your Likert questions quick and easy.

To display the answers graphically we have adopted spider charts (sometimes referred to as radar charts). Log in to the online demo to see how they work and try your own. We look forward to your feedback on these great new features.

New feature - Audit trail

To make it easier to meet the e-Govt web guidelines we have recently added an audit trail to Sonar. This enables administrators to easily see when a change was made and by whom. If needed these changes can be “rolled back” to an earlier version.

We are adding exciting new features over the next month and welcome your feedback.