When buying new technology, it's easy to be overcome with the tremendous amount of options available to purchase. So, to help prevent you from buying the wrong response system, we've put together a short checklist which should help you narrow down your system choices to make the costing and buying process easier.

• Response systems can be wired or wireless.
  • Wired systems are cheaper, and may be suitable for small groups, but of course wire tangles, cable length may be factors for you.
  • The majority of systems now are wireless systems, and are either Infrared (IR) needing direct line of sight to the receiver and have a shorter range, Radio Frequency (RF) have a larger range and may be affected by other nearby response systems - though unlikely. A simple USB dongle which connects to the computer is usually the receiver for such handsets.
• What type of participation do you want? If simple true/false, multiple choice answers, then a simple clicker handset should suffice. If you want your audience to be able to enter numerical data / type words, then you will require a more complicated handset on your response system.
• Do you want / need additional features like two-way communication between audience members, and the presenter? The ability for two-way text communication? Being able to send instant text messages to your participants etc.
• How many handsets do you require? Bundles can often be purchased in groups of 24 / 30 / 40.
• The ability level of your audience is important. Handsets are available for primary level / SEN work, or secondary / university level.

Now you've considered what features are currently available to you, let's examine the audience voting system products, that are currently available to you.

The products fall into three basic categories: basic clickers suitable for simple multiple questions, response systems for more complicated questions and most other needs, and professional level audience systems for large-scale meetings and other specialist needs.