Widgets in depth
Widgets are your fastest tool for surfacing a group's view and converging it. The User's Guide covers the mechanics. This page is about using them well in a live session.
The three session widgets, and when to reach for each
- 📊 Poll (
/poll): a decision or a temperature check with defined options. Reach for it when you need a choice made. - 🔤 Word cloud (
/wordcloud,/cloud): open-ended collection. Reach for it to open a subject: "one word for how the launch felt." - 🗳️ Sortbox (
/sortbox,/rank): prioritisation. Reach for it to order a known set: rank the options, or dot-vote to spread limited votes across them.
A common session arc:
- Word cloud to open.
- Discussion.
- Sortbox to prioritise.
- Poll to decide.
- Capture the decision as a finding.
Setting one up
Each widget opens a setup form. The options worth knowing:
- Poll:
- single or multiple choice;
- Include an "Other" option with a write-in field;
- Decided when: Only when closed (the default), Majority (more than half of the eligible voters chose one option) or Consensus (every eligible voter chose the same option). A poll that meets its rule shows as decided.
- Word cloud: a prompt, Max words per person (1 to 50; blank means no limit) and multicoloured words (on by default).
- Sortbox: the items, and rank or dot-vote. Items and mode are fixed once it is created.
- Every one of the three:
- Auto-close (optional): close after a number of minutes, hours or days;
- Send a notification to the chat when this opens.
The creator, or anyone who can manage widgets, can later change a widget's settings: the reveal policy, the poll's question, choice type and Decided when, or the word cloud's prompt, limit and colours.
Every widget type
The + menu's More lists every widget type your workspace has switched on, and the Assets rail has a folder for each:
| Widget | What it is for |
|---|---|
| 📊 Poll | Choose between options. |
| 🔤 Word cloud | Collect words. |
| 🗳️ Sortbox | Rank or dot-vote a set of items. |
| ✅ Checklist | A live view of a Topic's checklist, or a new checklist for this chat. See Checklists & interviews. |
❓ Quiz (/quiz) | Scored questions with a pass mark. Answers stay hidden from participants. |
🔗 Link (/link) | A web page or a YouTube, Vimeo or Loom video as a card. |
| 🗂️ Board | A live board of cards in columns. |
| 🎯 Problem Radar, 🏦 Problem Bank | Problem discovery. See Problem Radar & Problem Bank. |
Reveal policies are a facilitation lever
You choose when the results become visible:
- After you contribute: nobody sees the running tally until they have taken part. This is the default for polls and sortboxes. It stops anchoring, where early votes drag the rest. Use it whenever independent judgement matters.
- Live: everyone sees results as they build. This is the default for word clouds, and good when you want momentum.
- All at once: results stay hidden for everyone until the widget is closed. Use it for a clean reveal.
Pick the policy when you set the widget up. Quizzes and links have no reveal policy.
Running one in the room
- A widget renders inline at the point you created it, so it is anchored to the moment in the conversation it belongs to.
- Open it full-size, from its card or the Assets rail, to display it while the group works. Live updates reach the big view too.
- Share on the widget's card, or on its row in the Assets rail, copies a link to it (on a phone it opens the share sheet). The link opens the chat scrolled to the widget, expanded and highlighted. It grants nothing: someone who cannot see the chat cannot open it.
- Agents are participants: you can ask an agent to interpret a widget's result in the same chat.
- The person who made a widget can close, reopen and reconfigure it. So can anyone who can manage widgets: Curators, Facilitators, Admins and Owners.
- Deleting a widget moves it to the Trash, with Undo straight after. Quizzes and links are deleted permanently, and the confirmation says so.
Turning a result into knowledge
A widget result is only useful if it survives the session. When a poll settles or a ranking lands, capture it as a finding and send it to a Brain. Otherwise the outcome scrolls away with the chat. See Resolutions & findings.
Images and charts
/image and /chart are commands, not widgets:
/image <what to generate>asks the image agent to make a picture./chart <what the chart should show>asks the agents to draw a chart in their reply.
Nobody votes on them and they have no reveal policy.