How to set up and run a live session word cloud poll

What is a word cloud poll?

A word cloud is an aesthetic visualization of your audience’s thoughts, gathered in the form of a “cloud” or collage made of words. The gathered word cloud is displayed on a large screen at a venue for in-person attendees to see, or in the app for remote participants:

To create a word cloud, the host or moderator asks the audience a question in the form of a poll via the app. Based on the question (and the configuration in Backstage), participants will submit one or multiple responses, with each response made up of a single word (or a group of words separated by spaces). Emojis can also be used in responses.

Word clouds are perfect icebreakers and presentation openers that look impressive when displayed on a large screen. They can be used to get a feel of the room or venue, to re-engage attendees during live sessions, and to crowdsource what’s on their minds.

How to create a word cloud poll?

Word clouds are created in live sessions in the workspace.

In your workspace main menu, go to Interactivity > Live sessions, and select the live session where you wish to create a word cloud poll.

In the panel to the right, click on to open the Polls tab, then click on New poll and select Word cloud as the poll type:

In the New word cloud section to the right of the screen, use the below options to create your word cloud poll:

1. Enter the question that attendees will receive when the word cloud poll is launched.
   
   
2. If needed, edit the maximum number of characters that attendees can use to formulate their individual response(s). This is the limit per response, and is by default set to 30 characters.
   
   
3. Allow multiple words: Check this option if, as part of a single submitted response, you wish to allow your attendees to be able to use multiple words separated by spaces (for example a short sentence such as "I feel great"). If this option is not enabled, attendees will only be able to respond with a single word for each response (for example "Great").
   
   
4. Allow multiple answers: Check this option if you wish to allow your attendees to submit multiple responses for the poll. If this is not enabled, attendees will only be able to submit a single response that is made up of a single word or a group of words separated by spaces (depending on whether the Allow multiple words option is enabled). Emojis can also be used in responses.
   More information on the maximum number of words that can be displayed in a word cloud at a given time.
   
   
5. Determine the maximum number of individual responses that attendees can submit for the poll. The maximum number of responses you can set is 20.
   
   
6. You can customize the colors that will be used to display the word cloud. To do so click on Edit colors. This opens the live session settings where you can adjust the word cloud colors:
   
   Here you can configure up to three different colors that will be used to display the words in the word cloud. The default colors used are the primary color in the workspace theme editor. You can customize the three colors using the selector or by entering hex color codes.
   Click on Save to confirm the color changes made to the word cloud poll.
   You can only use one set of colors per live session: This means that if you have multiple word cloud polls in a live session, they will all use the same colors.
   
   
7. You can enable a Timer option, and specify the duration of the timer using the minutes and seconds fields. Doing this will give your audience a visible countdown of time during which they can respond to the poll. If the timer is enabled there are three possible options to choose from for when the timer runs out:- Don't close poll automatically: After the countdown the word cloud poll will remain open and attendees can still submit their responses.
   - Close poll: After the countdown the poll will close, attendees can no longer submit their responses, and the word cloud will continue to be displayed.
   - Close poll - hide results: After the countdown the poll will close, attendees can no longer submit their word cloud responses, and the word cloud will no longer be displayed.
   
   
8. Apply targeting to your word cloud poll:
   
   Targeting can now be applied directly within the actual polls, in order to determine exactly who will be able to see and participate in the polls. Polls within the same live session can now each have their own distinct targeting rules. More information on applying targeting to polls.

Once you have finished creating the word cloud poll, click on Save poll in the bottom right of the screen. The word cloud poll is now saved in the live session, and you can access it from here in the studio to edit it, or to launch the poll when you are ready:

From here, you can go through the above steps again to create additional word cloud polls in the session, if needed.

How many words or responses can a word cloud display at a given time?

When you create a word cloud poll, for the attendee responses you can edit the following:

• Maximum number of characters that are allowed (by default set to 30 characters)
• Whether to allow multiple words per response (or to just allow single words)

With this in mind, please be aware that the maximum number of attendee responses (individual words or groups of words), that can be be displayed at a given time in a word cloud, can vary depending on the following factors:

• The platform that the host/speaker/moderator or the attendee is viewing the word cloud:
  Studio / web app / mobile app / live display
• The view of the platform: Compacted or expanded.
• The attendance type of the host/speaker/moderator or the attendee:
  Virtual / In-person / Hybrid

How to run a word cloud poll?

So, you're now ready to launch the word cloud poll: you are in Studio as the host or moderator, and the session is live:

1. When you are ready to launch the poll, in studio click on to open the polls list, then open the word cloud poll, and click on Launch poll:
   
   The poll's status changes to Live, and a countdown is shown indicating when you can expect to receive the first responses from your remote attendees:
   
   
   
2. Attendees will see the poll question appear over the live stream if they are attending remotely (with a Go to stream button), or they will receive a push notification on the mobile app:
   
   More information on the notifications received by attendees when polls are launched.
   
   A badge also appears in the Poll tab to show that a poll has been launched, and users can directly open the Poll tab to access the poll.
   
   
3. In the Poll tab in the app, attendees can begin to submit their response(s). Here they can type their responses in the panel to the right, where it says "Your answer", and hit Send to submit their response(s).
   All the attendee responses will appear in real time in the word cloud preview in the web app:
   
   The more often a specific (exact) response is submitted by attendees, the bigger it will get in the word cloud. Colors are randomly assigned to responses based on the word cloud color settings.
   
   Attendees can also click on the Expand view button in order to see a larger display of the word cloud while still watching the live stream:
   
   
   These responses will also be displayed in real time in the live display (if configured) for the in-person attendees to see at the venue. More information on setting up a live display
   
   Tip: We recommend that you choose a background color or a branded image for your live display, as otherwise a black border will be shown. In the example above we have used a background image.
   
   In Studio, the host and speakers will also see the attendee responses as they come in. This includes the view of the word cloud, as well as the list of submitted words and the number of times each exact word or response was submitted:
   
   
   
4. Closing the poll and hiding the results:
   Once all responses are received from the attendees, the host or moderator can click on Close poll. In doing this, attendees will no longer be able to submit responses for the word cloud via the app. The word cloud visualization will continue to be displayed in the app to attendees, and in the live display at the venue.
   After clicking on Close poll, to remove the word cloud visualization from the app and the live display, the host can click on Hide results in Studio:
   
   The word cloud will disappear immediately from the live display, and within 15 seconds in the web app.
   
   Hosts can also access more information regarding the word cloud poll, by clicking on the INFOS dropdown button. This includes when the poll was launched, when it was closed, what the number of individual responses is for the poll, and what is/was the percentage of attendees that joined the live session and that participated in the poll:
   
   

How to export the poll results and download the word cloud image

Poll results can easily be exported via the live session analytics. The report will contain a dedicated "Polls" tab, if polling was used. Simply go to the live session where the poll was run, and download the interactions report.

You can also download the word cloud as an image in .png format. To do so, click on the magnifying glass in the poll tab to the right to open the full view of the word cloud, and then click on Download .png to download the file to your computer:

Blocked words: How to prevent certain words from appearing in word clouds

A "blocked words" option can be enabled and configured in Backstage, in order to prevent participants from submitting unwanted or offensive words during word cloud polls.

The option uses lists of blocked words that are considered offensive, and that are present in the workspace. These lists are available by default in English / French / German / Spanish (if the language is enabled on the workspace in the settings).

The language lists can be edited. Existing words can be removed and new words can be added. Additional language lists can also be created, with their own list of blocked words. There is no limit to the number of blocked words that can be added to a list.

With the blocked word function enabled, if an attendee attempts to submit a response that includes a blocked word (or set of words), they will see a message in the web app saying "Sorry, it seems like that phrase is not allowed".

To note, the system for checking words is not case sensitive. It will only block responses that include an exact word or set of words that fully match an entry in the list. If a blocked word is used as part of a group of words in the response, the response will be blocked.

As an example, let's imagine that the word "cat" is included in the blocked words list:

• If an attendee submits "cAt" as a response, it will be blocked.
• If an attendee submits "black cat" as a response, it will be blocked.
• If an attendee submits "c at" or "c*t" as a response, it will not be blocked.

When a response is blocked, the submitted response is not displayed in the word cloud on the app to the user or to any other attendees watching the word cloud. The submitted response is also not shown in the Live session in Backstage.

The participation numbers and percentages visible in Backstage in studio (in the INFOS section in the side panel) will only include the submitted responses that were not blocked. Block submissions are not counted as a participation in a word cloud.

The live sessions analytics reports (available in the dashboard and the interactions report) for the specific poll will include the attempted submissions that were blocked, and will indicate why each submission was blocked ("blocked phrase").

Blocked words lists are supported in workspace templates:

• They are included in a workspace when created from a template that has blocked words lists
• They are included in a template if the template is created based on a workspace that has blocked words lists.

Note: While the blocked words option is enabled in the workspace, it will be applied to all the word cloud polls that are launched in all the live sessions in the workspace. The word cloud blocked words functionality is only applied to word cloud polls - it is not applied to other functionalities (Q&A, feed posts, etc.).

How to enable and edit the blocked words lists

Go to Live > Live sessions > Preferences tab > Word cloud - blocked words:

Here you can:

1 - Use the toggle to enable or disable the blocked words option in your word clouds.

2 - See the existing lists of blocked words (per language), and use the x to delete individual words, or click on Add word to type in a new word for the list (and hit Enter to confirm).

3 - Click on Delete to fully remove an existing language list of blocked words, or click on Add language to add a new list of blocked words.
When you add a new language list, you will need to enter the language for the list and hit Create:

The empty list is created, you can start entering the words for the list: