How It Works
Open-ended questions let respondents answer in free text, so they can express their complete thoughts, feelings, and knowledge. The response isn’t limited to a set of options — your audience types whatever they want, and each submission appears on your screen in real time.Setting Up an Open Ended Slide
Add the slide and write your question
In the editor, click New slide (top-left) and select Open Ended from the slide type picker. Type your question in the Your question field on the right panel.A good Open Ended question is specific enough to spark a real response. “What’s one thing you’d improve about our onboarding?” tends to get more useful answers than “What do you think?”
Collect audience info (optional)
Expand Collect audience info in the right panel to add fields like name or team. This lets you see who said what alongside each response. See collecting audience information for details.
Choose a layout
Under Results → Layout, pick one of two display styles:
- Grid — shows all responses at once as they come in. Great for spotting patterns across a large audience.
- One by one — reveals responses individually. Useful when you want to read each answer aloud or discuss it with the room.
Submissions do not rotate automatically in the One by one layout — you move through responses manually. This keeps you in control of the pace so you can read each answer aloud or discuss it before advancing to the next one.
Present and collect responses
Click Present — your audience joins on their devices, types their answers, and responses appear on your screen in real time. You can manually delete any response by clicking the × icon next to it.To reuse the slide in a future session, clear its results first.
Settings
Time Limit
Time Limit
Puts a countdown on the slide, from 5 seconds to 20 minutes. Available on Edu Medium, Edu Large, Essential, Pro, and Enterprise plans.
Close Submission
Close Submission
Blocks new responses — useful once everyone has answered and you’re ready to discuss. Available on Edu Medium, Edu Large, Essential, Pro, and Enterprise plans.
Hide Results
Hide Results
Keeps submitted responses hidden from your screen until you choose to reveal them. Available on Edu Large, Pro, and Enterprise plans.
Multiple Submissions
Multiple Submissions
Lets each participant submit multiple responses (unlimited).
Image Submissions
Image Submissions
Participants can share a photo instead of typing text. See sharing images with the Open Ended slide for how this works on the audience side.
Profanity Filter
Profanity Filter
Automatically censors English swear words in submitted responses. Enabling this applies the profanity filter to your entire presentation.
Smart Grouping
AhaSlides can automatically cluster similar responses so you can spot patterns and themes at a glance.Wait for submissions
While presenting, scroll to the bottom of the presenter screen once everyone has submitted.
Smart Grouping is only available once the Open Ended slide has received more than 10 submissions, and it works once per session per slide — only group after everyone has submitted. The Open Ended slide itself supports unlimited submissions.
Common Use Cases
Feedback
“What’s one thing you’d change about today’s session?” Captures specific, actionable input that a rating scale alone can’t provide.
Brainstorming
“What ideas do you have for the new product name?” Surfaces diverse ideas from the whole group simultaneously, not just the loudest voices in the room.
Icebreakers
“Describe your weekend in one word.” A low-stakes, fun opener that gets everyone participating immediately and sets an interactive tone.
Reflection
“What’s the most important thing you learned today?” Encourages active recall and gives you insight into which messages landed with your audience.
Video Tutorial
Exporting Responses
All Open Ended responses are included in your presentation’s data export. After your session, download the full set of answers as a spreadsheet — see Export data to Excel.Open Ended is a Poll-type slide. The free plan allows up to 3 Poll-type slides per presentation at full participant capacity. Poll and Word Cloud slides also count toward this limit.