Interactive Polling Activity

To engage meeting participants during design presentation and gather live feedback on their preferences.

PURPOSE:

The Interactive Polling method allows designers to survey meeting participants and display results in real-time. It allows for a more engaging meeting format while also allowing the presenter to collect important data points regarding participants' preferences on a project.

DESIGN PHASE:

(highlighted in bold are the phase or phases most applicable)

Vision and goals
Site exploration
Program development
Co-design
Design evaluation
Implementation

MATERIALS NEEDED:

The presenter must have:

Mentimeter user account (free or paid account options available with varying degrees of functionality)
Internet connection at the meeting site

Participants must have:

Smartphone or other smart device from which to connect to the Mentimeter system

PREFERRED FORMAT:

Workshop, open house, online meeting

SUGGESTIONS:

Do make sure you are applying it to the appropriate type of audience groups. This method works best for teenager or adult audience groups who have access to a smartphone or other device that is connected to the internet. Participants should also be comfortable with the basic features of such devices.
Do consider how the placement of your questions can lead to a more engaging presentation. Having multiple points throughout the presentation where questions are presented can help participant stay engaged and interested in the subject.
Do consider purchasing a premium account if you plan to incorporate many poll questions into your presentation. The free version of Mentimeter allows up to two questions per presentation, which will be sufficient for many users.

The basic concept behind interactive polling is the same as that of traditional polling - it involves asking questions to a group of people about their perception or thoughts on a given topic. Traditional methods of polling typically involve separate phases of data collection and dissemination of findings. What makes interactive polling unique is that it combines these two phases so that pollsters and participants can see live results.

Interactive polling is typically conducted in tandem with a presentation. For example, a design team may present to a community group about progress on a new public park project. They may start by providing project background, goals, constraints, and design alternatives for consideration. At this point, it may be helpful to poll community members on their preferences of design alternatives. Using an interactive polling platform, they can integrate poll questions into the presentation and display community responses in real-time.

A major benefit of this method is that it allows participants to see what others in the room are thinking in response to the presentation, in an efficient and user friendly manner. The visualizations can serve as a jumping off point for a community discussion about topics like the vision and goals of a project, or preferred design alternatives. It also allows the design team to come away from a presentation with quantifiable data to inform their design decisions. All in all, the method creates for a much more dynamic, engaging, and memorable presentation.

One user-friendly platform for interactive polling is Mentimeter (https://www.mentimeter.com/). Users can sign up for an account based on their use case (the basic account is free) and build presentations within the platform. The user can then select to insert poll questions at strategic points throughout the presentation. Poll questions can be structured in a number of different ways, including as multiple choice questions, ranked prioritization, and more noted below.

Poll Format Options AvailableSource: https://www.mentimeter.com/features/live-polling

Interactive polling can be useful in any phase of design where design input is sought out from a group of stakeholders. In particular, it can be helpful for the Vision and Goalsetting, Program Development, and Design Evaluation phases of design.

It can be utilized for both in-person presentations as well as virtual presentations via Zoom. Its versatility and ease of implementation make interactive polling an essential part of a community planner's toolkit.

Organization and Process

(Before your presentation)

Decide on your goals for the design presentation. What are the big picture goals that you are looking to achieve as part of the presentation? For example, do you want to decide which design alternative is the most popular? Do you need input on which capital improvement projects should be prioritized for phased implementation?
Come up with poll questions that feed into to the goals of your presentation/design phase. Make sure that questions are worded clearly, and directly address the feedback you are looking to receive at this phase of the project. A good way to test the clarity of your questions is to ask friends or colleagues not involved in the design. Consider where in the design presentation each of the questions will be inserted. Note that incorporating polling at multiple points throughout the presentation can help keep participants engaged and interested.
Sign up for a Mentimeter (or other platform) account, and start design your presentation. Go to Mentimeter.com and choose which account type is best suited for you. There are four different levels of membership, with the basic (free) version allowing unlimited presentations with a limit of two poll question per slide.

(During the presentation)

Explain to your audience how to use the tool. At the beginning of the presentation, it will be helpful to inform your audience that you will be conducting live polling, and go over the basics of how that will work. When you get to your first poll question, explain to participants that they should use their smartphones or other devices to go to "menti.com", and enter the meeting code. The question on the projector will automatically load on their screen, and they should follow the prompts to answer it.
Start polling!
Discuss poll results with your group as they become live. The benefit of this method is that it allows participants and presenters to see how the community feels about a certain topic in real-time. Presenters can use the findings as a starting point to initiate a deeper dive into a topic, or simply share a brief observation of findings and move on to the next question.
Leave the poll questions open after the presentation, if desired. If there are people who need to be informed or polled that were not present at the live meeting, you can share the web-presentation with them, leaving the poll open for a designated period of time. This can help expand the reach of your presentation and polling to a wider audience.

(After the presentation)

Case Example

The interactive polling method was utilized during the public engagement phase of the Bibb County UGA Extension landscape design project for the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The project involved design of the area outside the Robert S. Train Center, located at 715 Oglethorpe St in Macon, GA. The historic building was in the process of being restored to become the future home of the Bibb County UGA Cooperative Extension, and students were tasked with engaging with Extension volunteers, staff, and community members to establish a master plan for the site (read more about the project here). Throughout the semester, students conducted four stages of engagement including project initiation, alternative review, master plan feedback and prioritization, and implementation strategy. Interactive polling was utilized during the third design phase: master plan feedback and prioritization.

The design team planned for a Zoom session to meet with community members to present updates on the project, and was considering ways to solicit feedback from community members in a way that felt seamless and natural. One of the team members had utilized Mentimeter before, and felt that it could be a helpful way to engage the meeting participants while also collecting important feedback. Since it was the first time using it through an virtual meeting, however, there was some hesitancy over how that might work. With a live format, if any questions arose there would be a person on-hand to help participants navigate the system, but this would not be possible in a virtual format.

The design team prepared a presentation that included a synthesized Master Plan, renderings of proposed program areas, and an estimate of probable construction cost. Two poll questions were integrated as part of the process:

Asking about each participant's priority for the various project area in terms of phased implementation. This included a ranking of of 1 (highest priority) to 4 (lowest priority) for front lawn, outdoor classroom, demonstration garden, and terrace areas of the site.
Asking participants which volunteer projects they would be most interested in participating in to move the project towards implementation.

The screenshots below show the results of the polling efforts.

Approximately 10 participants gave responses to the poll for each question, meaning that not all but most participants were able to enter their responses. The question about project prioritization in particular was helpful to the project, and the use of interactive polling allowed the design team to quickly gauge how Master Gardeners felt about project implementation. It was also helpful in that it launched a deeper conversation about why participants felt a certain way. Master Gardeners were invited to share their thoughts on why they selected certain priorities over others with the group, allowing the group to come to a better understanding, and reach a consensus.

Lessons Learned

The design team found that the interactive polling method was highly effective, in this virtual format. It allowed for a seamless way to collect input from meeting participants, and served as a great ice breaker for continued discussion. Some lessons learned include:

This is a great method for engaging participants of live and virtual meetings, workshops, and open house events.
It would likely work best with teenagers and adults, who have a basic comfort level in using a smartphone and web-based technology. It could possibly be adapted to serve other audiences as well, but would require additional supervision and staff support.

Sources:

https://www.mentimeter.com/

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