What is an audience response system used for?

Live polls, quizzes, feedback ratings, and Q&A in classrooms, training sessions, conferences, meetings, and services.

What is the difference between clickers and phone-based response systems?

Clickers are handheld devices handed out and collected at each session. Phone-based systems use the devices people already carry, through a web page, an app, or text messages.

Does a text-based response system need an app?

No. People reply from their phone's own texting app, so it works on any phone that can send a text.

What is an audience response system?

An audience response system (ARS) is a tool that lets everyone in a room answer a question at the same time and shows the combined results to the presenter or to the whole audience. It's used for live polls, quizzes, ratings, and questions in classrooms, training sessions, conferences, meetings, and church services. Early systems used handheld clickers handed out at the door; most current systems run on the phones people already carry.

The goal is participation at scale. A show of hands works in a room of 20. In a room of 500, an audience response system counts the answers accurately and lets people answer without being seen.

How is it used?

The presenter sets up a question, the audience answers, and the system shows the results, often as a bar chart on the main screen. Results can be anonymous, which helps with questions people wouldn't raise a hand for.

Audience response systems come in three broad kinds:

Clickers. Dedicated handheld devices with answer buttons. They work without any internet connection for the audience, but they have to be bought or rented, handed out, and collected afterward.
Web or app. The audience opens a web page or installs an app and joins a session, usually by typing a code. This handles longer question types, but people need a working data connection and have to type a URL or find the app.
Text messaging. The audience texts a keyword to a short code and replies with their answer. It works on any phone that can text and needs nothing installed, which helps in rooms with weak Wi-Fi or audiences who won't download anything. It suits short-answer questions best.

Why it matters at live events

The right type depends on the room. A university lecture with the same students every week can manage clickers. A one-time keynote can't hand out 800 devices, and plenty of that audience won't install an app for a 45-minute talk. Asking people to text a word to a five-digit number is the lowest bar to clear.

Text-based polling also has a side effect the other kinds don't: the response arrives with a phone number attached, and the conversation can keep going. In Textiful, a poll is a step inside a capture flow, so you can ask for a vote and an email in the same conversation. The public results page projects counts and percentages only (never names or numbers), updates in real time, and shows a winner or tie banner when the poll closes.

See live polls for how Textiful polls work, or How do I show live poll results on screen? for room setup.

Key takeaways

An audience response system lets a whole room answer at once and shows the combined results.
Clickers, web or app, and text messaging are the three main kinds.
Text-based systems work on any phone that can text and need nothing installed.
With text, a poll vote can also start a sign-up, such as asking for an email.

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Audience response system