The 8 PollsLive question types, and when to use each

PollsLive gives you eight question types, and picking the right one is most of what makes an interaction land. Here is what each does and the moment to reach for it. You choose the type per slide from the Question type menu in the editor, or start one straight from the Studio dashboard grid.

1. Multiple choice

The classic poll: a question and a set of options, shown as a live bar chart. Set it to single answer for a clean vote, or multiple answers when people can pick several. Reach for it for quick opinions, decisions, and mood checks.

2. Quiz

A multiple-choice question with a right answer, a countdown timer, and points. Faster correct answers score more, and a leaderboard ranks players between questions. Use it for training checks, classrooms, and trivia - anything where a bit of competition helps.

3. Word cloud (open text)

An open-text question set to render as a cloud: as people type short answers, the words gather and the most common ones grow biggest. It is the fastest way to take the temperature of a room in their own words.

4. Live Q&A

Instead of answering your question, the audience asks theirs. Questions come in, everyone can upvote the ones they care about, and you moderate what shows. Perfect for the end of a talk, a town hall, or an AMA where you want the best questions to rise on their own.

5. Scale / rating

A rating on a range - 1 to 5 stars, a 0 to 10 recommend score for NPS, or an agree/disagree Likert scale. Quick to set with the built-in presets. Use it for confidence checks, satisfaction, and any "how strongly do you feel" question.

6. Ranking

People drag options into their preferred order, and you get an aggregated priority list. Ideal when the answer is not one winner but an order - which features to build first, which topics to cover, what to tackle next sprint.

7. Planning Poker

Story-point estimation for software teams. Everyone picks a card from a deck (Fibonacci, T-shirt sizes, and more), votes stay hidden until you reveal, and the spread sparks the discussion. Built for sprint planning.

8. Content slide

Not a question at all - a plain slide for a title, a section header, or an instruction. Use it to break a long deck into parts (the Employee satisfaction survey uses these to split its sections) or to set up the next question.

So which do you pick?

• A quick opinion or decision - multiple choice.
• Test knowledge with a bit of fun - quiz.
• Feelings in their own words - word cloud.
• Let the audience ask - live Q&A.
• How strongly they feel - scale.
• Put things in order - ranking.
• Estimate work as a team - Planning Poker.
• Set up or divide a deck - content slide.

You can mix as many of these as you like in one deck. To try them, build a poll from scratch or open the full question types reference.