If you're not designing your survey with a mobile-first mentality, your market research will suffer. According to SimilarWeb's State of Mobile Web US 2015 report, roughly 56% of consumer traffic to the leading U.S. websites is now from mobile devices. According to Greenbook, if the current trend continues, mobile surveys will exceed PC conversions in 2016. This will further disrupt the industry and research designs which are not mobile-friendly.
This is especially true in B2C market research settings but also true in B2B settings. Although the likelihood of a B2B survey respondent taking his or her survey on a PC is higher, B2B respondents are still consumers, and they still spend a considerable amount of time on their phone. Like mobile-friendly websites, mobile-friendly surveys are no longer a "nice-to-have", they are a "must-have."
Unfortunately, plenty of market research companies still under-perform here. It's important during testing of your survey to consider both mobile and PC design, and some survey platforms provide the ability to toggle between the two in design mode. An unfriendly survey design will undoubtedly increase the number of drop-outs on your survey, decrease completion rates, ruin your engagement score, and have create lasting impressions of your company brand.
Have an upcoming market research project? Ensure you are ready for mobile respondents. Here are 4 tips to make your online survey more mobile-friendly.
Tip 1: Use Short Lists and Answer Text
You can categorize this under friendly-design, not just mobile-friendly design. If your answer text extends 3 or 4 lines and your answer choices extend 8, 10 or 12 lines, this is overwhelming for respondents. I've seen single questions in online surveys that literally take minutes to read. Imagine trying to read all of this text on a mobile phone.
Tip 2: No More Scrolling
Coupled with the point about short lists and answer text, keep your survey question above the fold (or scroll line.) If you force your respondents to scroll on either PC or phone, it adds to survey time and reduces engagement. Do not put multiple questions on one page but rather break them up over several. Again, Drive has seen far too many surveys online where the entire survey is on 1 page. That's upward of 10 to 15 questions of continuous scrolling.
Tip 3: Brevity
In business and in surveys, get to your point. Make your survey questions and responses easy to understand and brief. Shorter questions, shorter text, and shorter lists keep momentum in a survey. In the mobile phone world you are battling for your respondents' attention versus text messages, notifications, phone calls, and app alerts. Any one of which can derail your respondents' attention span. Don't plan on them coming back to finish your survey either. Hope that you find a window of time and they can complete your survey before that window closes.
Tip 4: Large Text
Drive has seen other surveys that require respondents to pinch the screen to zoom in. The text of the question is so small, it's nearly impossible to read for a 27 year old, let alone a 72 year old. If respondents need to pinch their mobile phone on each survey question to answer your survey, you're begging for a drop-out. Make sure your text is big enough for mobile screens. Cheater glasses should not be required.
Drive Research is an online survey company in Syracuse, NY. We build custom market research studies for our clients based on your unique needs and questions. Drive differentiates itself through responsive and quality market research data which is used to generate insight and action for your business. The data you receive is not the end of your engagement with Drive, it is the beginning. Contact us with questions at 315-303-2040 or email us at [email protected].