The idea behind Declair started in 2014 with a simple frustration: asking a group "what should we do?" rarely produced a clear answer. Surveys collected data but didn't decide. Star ratings were emotional and inconsistent. Traditional polls showed all options at once and people rushed through.
The answer was hiding in plain sight. When humans compare just two things — "A or B?" — their judgments are sharper, more consistent, and more honest. This is the principle behind pairwise comparison, backed by nearly a century of decision science from Thurstone (1927) to Saaty (1980).
Declair combines this research foundation with a key innovation: distributed voting. Each participant answers a manageable set of comparisons, and as many contribute, statistically robust rankings emerge — without exhausting anyone.