Questions from Audience

Learn how to use Mentimeter to hold Q&A sessions

Emma Cullen avatar
Written by Emma Cullen
Updated over a week ago

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Questions from Audience (also known as Q&A) is a feature that presenters can add to their presentations to enable the audience to ask questions directly to the presenter using their smart device. This article explores the use cases for Questions from Audience and how to use this function.

How to use Questions from Audience

There are three core use cases for Questions from Audience, which gives the presenter total control of how they wish to use this feature: 

1. Enable Q&A on one slide only

You can use Questions from Audience as a slide type. This means that the presenter can decide exactly when the audience can ask questions and when they will be answered. The audience will only be able to ask questions when that slide is shown. There is no limit on the number of Q&A slides you can add to your presentation, even if you are on the free plan.

To use this slide type, click on New Slide button and select the Q&A slide:

2. Enable Q&A on all slides

Alternatively, you can turn on Questions from Audience on every slide. This means that the audience can ask questions at any time during the presentation and the presenter can answer the questions at any point.

To configure your presentation and turn on the Questions from Audience function for all slides, select "Settings" from the top menu when you are in the Edit View. In the panel menu which appears in the right-hand side of your screen, select Q&A from the submenu. Here you can turn off and on the Questions from Audience feature as well as select if you want to enable the audience to see each other’s questions (recommended for audience sizes of up to 5000).

3. Enable Q&A on all slides as well as on a Q&A slide

The final option is to use both the Q&A slide and turn on the Questions from Audience feature on all slides during the presentation. This means that the presenter can accept questions throughout the whole of the presentation, but also use the Q&A slide to indicate to the audience that they will dedicate a specific time to answering questions. This way, the presenter can receive questions for the duration of the presentation.

To enable this, simply add a Q&A slide and in the panel on the right-hand side of the screen. You should select that the participants can ask questions on all slides, as demonstrated in the image below:

Enable Questions from Audience while presenting

You can also easily and quickly enable Questions from audience while presenting by clicking the "Enable Questions from Audience" button in the presentation menu:

Presenting with Questions from Audience

When you are presenting a Questions from Audience slide, the most upvoted question will automatically be shown. Once you have answered a question, you can use the hotkey “Enter” to mark the question as answered. It will then be moved to the bottom of the question list, and the next unanswered question with the most upvotes from the audience will be shown.

If you have enabled Q&A on all slides, you should click the Questions from Audience icon in the bottom right-hand of the slide (or use the hotkey “Q”) when you want to answer/display the question. A small notification dot will appear on the icon when there are new messages. When you click the icon the most upvoted question will display on your screen:

You can use the the hotkey “Enter" to mark the selected question as answered.

For context, you will also see the name of the slide you were presenting when each question was submitted:

See Previously Answered Questions

To see a list of your questions marked as answered, while on a Q&A slide or on any slide if you have enabled Q&A on all slides, you should click the Questions from Audience icon in the bottom right-hand of the slide (or use the hotkey “Q”) to open up the Q&A feature, and then select "See all questions":

This will open up a list of your questions, split into unanswered and answered:

You can also delete all answered questions from this menu as well to remove them from the presentation. Questions which have been deleted will not be included in any future Excel imports, so if you want to clear your Q&A session for a fresh start, you can reset the results and the questions from your previous sessions will be available when exporting to Excel.

Exporting Questions from Audience

It is also possible to export the questions that were received during the presentation via the Questions from Audience function (to Excel, not to PDF). To do this, simply export your results to Excel as normal, and select the Q&A tab in your spreadsheet to view the questions asked.

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