mixed-device

Mobile-only web survey respondents

My breaks between posts are getting longer and longer. Sorry my dear readers. Today, I am writing about research done over a year ago that I did with Vera Toepoel and Alerk Amin. Our study was about a group of respondents we can no longer ignore: Mobile-only web survey respondents. These are people, who do no longer use a laptop or desktop PC and use their smartphone for most or any of their Internet browsing, but instead use a smartphone.

The traditional web survey is dead

Why we should throw out most of what we know on how to visually design web surveys In 2000, web surveys looked like postal surveys stuck onto a screen. Survey researchers needed time to get used to the idea that web surveys should perhaps look differently from mail surveys. When I got into survey methodology in 2006, everyone was for example still figuring out whether to use drop down menus (no), how many questions to put on one screen (a few at most), let alone whether to use slider bars (it’s not going to reduce breakoffs).