Hamel Husain: Use Binary Pass/Fail Evals, Not 1-5 Likert Scales
HamelHusain · x · 2026-10-02
Evals expert Hamel Husain explains why he recommends binary pass/fail labels over 1-5 Likert scales:
- Binary labels force clearer judgments, more consistent labeling, and are far simpler to operationalize
- Rating-scale pitfalls: adjacent scores (3 vs. 4) are subjective and inconsistent across annotators, statistical differences need larger samples, and annotators default to middle values to avoid hard calls
- Binary decisions also speed up error analysis
- For gradual improvement, use separate binary checks on sub-components (e.g., "4 of 5 expected facts included") instead of a scale
- Start binary to understand what 'bad' looks like; numeric labels are advanced and rarely necessary
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