Live Polls

Before You Start

Before creating live polls, make sure you have:

• A talk assigned to you — polls are created per talk in the speaker portal.
• Session with Q&A/polls enabled — the session your talk belongs to must have engagement features turned on.

Live polls let you ask your audience questions during your talk and see their responses in real time. They are a simple way to break the ice, check understanding, gather opinions, or just make your session more interactive.

Where to Find It

Me > Talks > Open a talk > Polls

Use the Polls tab on your talk to prepare, activate, pause, close, and review poll results.

Live Poll Delivery Flow

Poll types

ema supports seven poll types:

Type	What it does	Example
Multiple choice	Audience picks one or more options from a list.	"Which topic should we cover next?"
Yes / No	A simple two-option vote.	"Have you used this feature before?"
Rating	Audience rates something on a scale (e.g., 1 to 5).	"How useful was this session?"
Word cloud	Audience types a word or short phrase; popular answers appear larger.	"Describe this conference in one word."
Open text	Audience submits free-text responses.	"What question do you want answered?"
Ranking	Audience ranks items in order of preference.	"Rank these priorities from most to least important."
Numeric	Audience enters a number; ema calculates the average.	"How many years of experience do you have?"

Creating a poll

Choose the poll type for the moment

Use yes/no or multiple choice when you need a quick audience pulse. Use word cloud or open text when you want ideas in the audience's own words. Use rating, ranking, or numeric polls when you need a measurable result.

1. Navigate to your talk in the Speaker portal.
2. Open the Polls tab.
3. Click New Poll.
4. Fill in the details:

Field	Description
Title	The question or prompt shown to your audience.
Description	Optional extra context or instructions.
Type	Choose one of the seven poll types listed above.
Options	For multiple choice, yes/no, and ranking polls, add the answer options. Each option has text and an optional image. Drag to reorder.
Show results	Control when the audience sees results: Always, After they vote, After you close the poll, or Never.
Public	Whether the poll and its results are visible to anyone or only to session attendees.

5. Click Save.

Configuration options by poll type

Depending on the type you choose, additional settings appear:

• Multiple choice: Allow multiple selections, set a max number of selections.
• Rating: Set the minimum and maximum rating values and the step increment.
• Numeric: Set minimum and maximum allowed values.
• Open text: Set a maximum text length.
• Ranking: Set the number of items to rank.

Managing poll options

After creating a multiple choice, yes/no, or ranking poll, you can update the options at any time before activating the poll:

1. Open the poll from the Polls tab.
2. Click Edit Options.
3. Add, remove, or reorder options.
4. Click Save.

Once a poll has been activated and audience members have started voting, you should avoid changing options, as it can affect results.

Do not change active answer options lightly

Changing options after voting starts can make results harder to interpret. If the poll question is wrong, close it and create a corrected poll instead.

Running polls during your talk

Each poll goes through a lifecycle: Draft → Active → Paused (optional) → Closed.

Activating a poll

1. Open the Polls tab during your talk.
2. Find the poll you want to run and click Activate.
3. The poll is pushed live to your audience. Attendees see the question on their device and can start voting immediately.

Pausing a poll

If you want to temporarily stop accepting responses — for example, to discuss interim results before collecting more — click Pause. The poll stays visible to the audience but voting is suspended. Click Activate again to resume.

Closing a poll

When you are done collecting responses, click Close. The poll stops accepting votes permanently. If you set "Show results" to "After you close the poll," the audience sees the results at this point.

Viewing results in real time

While a poll is active, open the poll and click Results. The results view updates in real time as votes come in:

• Multiple choice / Yes-no / Ranking: Each option shows a vote count and percentage bar.
• Rating / Numeric: Shows the average value along with the response count.
• Word cloud: Words appear in a cloud visualization — the more popular a word, the larger it appears.
• Open text: Responses are listed as they come in.

You can display the results on screen during your talk or reference them in your presentation.

Editing and deleting polls

• To edit a poll's title, description, or settings, open it from the Polls tab and make your changes. You can edit a poll in any state, but changing options on an active poll may confuse your audience.
• To delete a poll, open it and click Delete. This permanently removes the poll and all its responses.

Connected Feature

Poll responses can earn attendees gamification points, encouraging participation. See Gamification.

Open related guide

Connected Feature

Combine polls with live Q&A for maximum audience engagement during your session. See Q&A Moderation.

Open related guide

Tips

• Prepare your polls before your talk starts. Create all your polls in draft state ahead of time so you can activate them with a single click during your session.
• Open with an icebreaker poll. A quick yes/no or word cloud question at the start gets the audience engaged from the first minute and sets the tone for an interactive session.
• Keep multiple choice options to 4 or 5. More than that and the audience spends too long reading instead of voting.
• Use "After they vote" for show results if you want to encourage participation — people are more likely to vote when they can immediately see how others responded.
• Close your polls before moving on. An open poll that you forgot about can be confusing for attendees who join late or scroll back.