The Q&A feature is a tool I always dreamed of having access to in my years doing community work, and had given up on the chance of having.

It's intuitive for our reporters and commenters to use without much instruction, it makes for an excellent user experience for comment readers (the vast majority of people interacting with comments anyway), and the way it's built encourages a very high caliber of comments.

In response to coronavirus, we are planning a daily Q&A conversation onsite between different journalists and readers (you can browse them at ft.com/ftreaders). We think that facilitating a space for readers to have direct access to our reporters and experts during such a confusing time is a public service.

This tool has come at the perfect time, significantly improving the experience both for our readers and our journalists.

Our reporters have so far said that the experience of doing Q&As has given them story ideas and a better sense of what their readers want to know, and that the tool is easy to use.

Our readers have also shared a lot of positive feedback on the format, including this:

"Many thanks for this precedent of getting specific questions answered by people with high expertise. Undoubtedly the most informative mode of journalism I've seen in over five decades. I hope it catches on."

Lilah Raptopoulos US Head of Audience Engagement The Financial Times