What is Mobile Research? Mobile research is a pretty broad term covering everything from SMS surveys, mobile applications and web-based research. It is important to understand the nuances among those different options. SMS Surveys SMS Surveys can be done on any mobile devices whether the newest of smartphones or the oldest school mobile devices imaginable. The question and answer process is done through text messaging. It can be a bit tedious with the back and forth mechanism between the respondent and the researcher but is a quite familiar approach. The advantages are that you don t have to worry about device type and it opens up the ability to do global studies. The disadvantage is the length and complexity of surveys possible through this approach, and the cost of multiple texts. Somewhat clunky but provides the ability to cover all mobile devices and thereby a wider population. SMS Survey Invites SMS Survey Invites are slightly different, where a text message is used as an invite to a survey via a survey link, not an SMS survey. In this approach, it is possible to take advantage of the wider population or a database of phone numbers to invite people to a mobile survey, thereby combining the convenience of SMS with the usability of a mobile survey and overcoming the limitations of SMS surveys. Mobile Applications Mobile Applications involve a special designed application that users download to their devices. Once downloaded the application facilitates the deployment of surveys or tasks. It offers the ability to have a more specialized functionality based on the design of the application uploading photos or video, location based info, push notifications, etc. Which makes them great for ethnography or geo-location pushed research (a future post will examine this topic in more depth). The advantages are a customized application to your research needs with a high degree of functionality. The disadvantages are finding the people, getting them to download your application and keeping them engaged. Web Based Responsive Design Web based surveys with responsive design provide people with the convenience of completing their survey on a desktop or any mobile device with a modern browser. A good solution will allow the administrator to specify if the study should be mobile only, desktop only or both. Some web based mobile solutions have question types optimized for the mobile environment, thereby ensuring an optimal user experience and high quality data. Other web based mobile solutions rely on the functionality of the mobile device to assist the user via a pinch and zoom method of viewing desktop surveys in a mobile browser which can results in a variable user experience depending on the survey design. When the solution is designed specifically for mobile, this approach provides flexibility and convenience to the respondent by letting them choose whether to complete on their desktop or smartphone resulting in higher response rates. Web based surveys also provide the benefit of desktop and mobile data integrated into one seamless process and dataset for the administrators. The disadvantage is limitations with some functionality like direct photo or video upload. It is a great approach for those leveraging insight communities. All the above approaches are valid. One simply needs to examine research requirements and methodological considerations in order to pick the right approach. 1 Vision Critical 2013
Why do Mobile Research? There are many reasons to do mobile research. Mobile research has hit the tipping point due to the proliferation of touch screen smartphones offering a user experience that has changed the way people perceive and use their mobile devices. Even though Apple wasn t the first manufacturer with a touch screen device, the revered iphone was the first to create a user experience that exploded sales of the device. Without getting into the debate of which manufacturers do it better or worse, they all have touch screen smartphones with better screen size and usability than the previous iterations of smartphone devices. The larger screen size, improved usability and multi-touch capabilities enabled people to have an enjoyable and convenient web browsing experience on their mobile devices and exploded the arena of mobile apps. This created and embedded the mobile browsing behavior that is enabling us to ask people to do research on their mobile devices. It is possible to do everything else on mobile devices (email, banking, Facebook), so why not surveys? The critical mass of smartphones within the market takes mobile research from a niche approach to a mainstream approach. The user benefit to mobile is to extend the customer s reach by going out to community members anywhere, anytime without additional work, but with a superior mobile experience. There are three main applications for mobile research. Better Experience It is common knowledge in the research industry that respondents are attempting to complete surveys on their mobile devices. Sometimes termed accidental mobile respondents, these are people who receive the survey invite on their mobile device, click on the link and struggle through a survey experience that was not designed for a mobile device. This also frequently occurs during any mobile web-browsing experience. Emails, attachments, links, website, calls to action that are purely designed for a desktop experience are being experimented with by people who are increasingly relying on their mobile device for all activities. Ensuring these people have a good survey experience is important to keeping them engaged in your research, lowering drop-out rates, increasing response rates and getting higher quality data. When you use a platform or application that is optimized for mobile enabled surveys, you ensure a good experience as opposed to a potentially variable user experience on a pinch and zoom method of viewing desktop surveys in a mobile environment. Increase Response Rates Certain segments of the population are more connected to their phones than others. To stereotype, this includes the younger demographic (teens, 18-24), early tech adopters, tech savants of any age, frequent travelers, and various elements of the B2B market. But smartphone ownership and usage is fast become a ubiquitous element to life. Soon it will apply to the vast majority of the population, instead of the vast minority (30%-40% ownership in North America). As more and more people s everyday lives become entwined and connected to their smartphones, it becomes important for marketers and researchers to connect with them in their preferred mode. Inviting them to partake in research activities via their smartphone simply takes the research to them, creating a convenient and personal way to get their responses which increases response rates. Good response rates are the cornerstone to good research. 2 Vision Critical 2013
In Situation Research The most exciting part of mobile research is the ability to do research that previously wasn t possible or was too expensive or logistically challenging to conduct. Mobile research allows you to engage people in research where they are, while they are experiencing a situation or event. This might include an event like a concert, sporting match, conference or celebration. It could include onsite experiences such as galleries, zoos, museums, aquariums, theatre or cultural centers. It could include services experienced in transit such as airlines, trains, taxis, public transit, limousines, buses or ferries. It could include services experience on-site such as airports, train stations, and hotels. It could include the full retail experience including exit interviews, mystery shopping, in-store evaluations, service evaluations, and more. Mobile research creates a new canvas for the researcher with a wealth of methodological options that are now affordable and manageable due to the convenience of technology. Mobile Web Just as with the evaluation of traditional websites, the evaluation of mobile websites is also a necessity. The ability to stream users from the mobile site to the mobile survey is critical for getting responses and impressions as recent to the experience as possible. Mobile banners or buttons can be used to stream people through to the mobile survey. Mobile Research Best Practices While the usability of smartphones is tremendous and improving every day, there is still the limited factor of the screen size regardless of which manufacturer or model you have. Within the smartphone landscape, real estate is limited and at a premium when conducting mobile research. We all have to imagine we are living in a Manhattan loft where every inch is utilized and at a premium. Maximize Real Estate The visual aspect of the web has allowed software developers to create a hugely engaging experience for people completing surveys on desktop and laptop computers. Highlighter tools, click maps, page turners, card sorts, drag and drop, images, video and more. Gone are the days of surveys comprised solely of radio buttons and huge grids. Advancements in technology, first Flash and now HTML5, are enabling us to ask questions in formats that weren t possible at the dawn of the web in order to make the user experience more engaging. However, research on mobile devices takes us both forwards and backwards at the same time; the opportunities for mobile research are vast, but when it comes to the traditional research, we are not completely back to the drawing board but back to basics. This series of best practices covers three broad areas in relation to real estate being at a premium in mobile surveys: 1. Banners & Branding 2. Limiting Scrolling 3. Use of Images 3 Vision Critical 2013
Banners and Branding Here are three tightly related best practices to following to maximize your mobile real estate related to your mobile banner which is the top portion of the mobile skin. The mobile skin is comprised of the overall visual design of the mobile interface including background color, shapes and colors of answers, borders, font, and the mobile banner. Banner: Many people are motivated to participate in surveys for reasons which are intrinsic to the research process. These include such a desire to have one s say on an issue of interest, a curiosity about a topic, the wish to affect the outcome of a decision-making process, or the desire to see one s views in the context of other people s. To encourage this set of motivations a retention strategy should involve demonstrating to members the value of the research, providing feedback on outcomes where possible and fostering a sense of community. In many cases, intrinsic rewards are more important than extrinsic incentives but this depends on the audience, affiliation with the brand / topic and purpose of the research. Branding: Keep the branding elements simple in your mobile skin. Generally a simple delivery of the company or brand name or insight community name is sufficient. This anchors people to the experience, while simultaneously providing a trustworthy and credible experience as people share their opinions. Logos: While you may be tempted to include you logo in your mobile skin, most logos will not fit the constrained dimensions recommended for a mobile banner. Or even worse, may require a distortion of your logo to fit in the constrained dimensions a practice vehemently and rightly shunned by marketing departments. In summary, pay attention to your mobile survey skin to ensure you have not encroached on the valuable real estate inherent in a smartphone device. Keep to the recommended dimensions, avoid the use of logos and stick to branding related to the name of your insight community. Limiting Scrolling As a general rule scrolling should be minimized or used sparingly, however, scrolling is not a scourge to be completely avoided. Scrolling is an essential tool in any web experience but is a particularly essential tool to facilitating a good mobile experience. Unnecessary scrolling or excessive scrolling can be distracting. There are two main scenarios to consider: 1) scrolling in one direction and 2) scrolling involving repeated back and forth up and down. The former is completely acceptable, the latter should be minimized. The following two scenarios illustrate each. Multiple Questions on a Page: It is often good practice and a good user experience to have multiple questions on a page. A good and common example is grouping contact information such as address, city, region, country, and postcode. Another example is grouping related demographic questions on a page such as age, gender, marital status. In this case people can scroll and answer in a fluid process then pressing next when completed. The key here is scrolling, whereby people move through questions in one direction. When using multiple questions on a page, it is recommended that related questions are grouped together and that it include only 3-5 questions none of those being grid questions. 4 Vision Critical 2013
Long Lists of Answer Categories: This could involve a single choice or multi-choice question where many answer categories are involved. In a desktop experience, a large number of answer categories can easily be accommodated by the larger screen and the ability to present answer categories in two, three or four columns in order to maximize real estate on the screen. A mobile survey does not offer such luxuries. Generally, 6-8 can be viewed quite holistically on a mobile screen (depending on the length of your question text and the length of your individual answer categories). When presenting 15, 20 or more categories to people it is necessary for them to do an inordinate amount of scrolling up and down to adequately view, absorb and evaluate the answer categories equally as they consider their responses. If people answer based on the first sub-set of items presented, potentially inaccurate data results. Multi-Choice Grids: Multi-choice grids are a staple of desktop surveys often with a handful of items for evaluation (5 items) to a slew of items (20+ items). If you feel you are pushing the limits for items in a desktop environment, you can be sure you have gone past the limits in a mobile environment. In the world of mobile research, you can include multi-choice grids but you should be very careful about the number of items included in each question. Vision Critical s software provides an excellent user experience through the expand/collapse capability of our single and multi-choice grids. The expand view ensures people can easily view the item and answer categories as one. The collapse view ensures people can easily see a summary of the items and their selected responses. This collapsed view is important, as people do a sub-conscious and conscious relative comparison of the items included. It is well known that [ep[;e will adjust their responses once they see how they have responded to all items, often providing tweaks and minor adjustments to make sure that one item compared to the next makes sense from their reference point. When a mobile survey includes 15 or 20+ items there is a huge amount of up and down scrolling required to perform this mental arithmetic. Mobile surveys with grids of 8-10 items are quite manageable for people. Use of Images Desktop surveys often incorporate images to create a more engaging experience. Images might be used in the introduction of the survey, instruction pages, as answer categories or as a stimulus to respond to. In the case of mobile surveys, we are once again constrained by our precious and limited real estate. Don t let this stop you from using images appropriately, but ensure your use of images has a concrete purpose. The main considerations in the use of images in mobile surveys are: Image Sizing: Images take up real estate on the screen and can compete with your question text and answer categories. Check that your image is sized to be legible on the screen both for size and quality as well as how it displays with your accompanying question. Ideally, your software will facilitate or manage this process for you but the responsibility still lies in the hands of the person designing the survey. Depending on your question, there are a variety of options available: If you have just one question related to the image, present the image and question laid out all on one page where you first provide instructions asking people to view the image and answer the associated question presented underneath the question. If you have several associated questions related to the image, perhaps even involving blocks, rotations or looping, there are two routes: show the image with instructions to answer a series of associated follow-up questions or repeat the image with each associated question. Page Load Times: Images can sometimes affect the load times for new pages in the survey. Obviously this varies from person to person and is greatly influenced by networks speeds, volume and traffic which are beyond the control of clients and researchers. There is a great amount of tolerance among users to allow one page to load, maybe even two but not each and every page. So use images when needed not just because you can. 5 Vision Critical 2013