Overcoming challenges in mobile questionnaire design 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Ms Joanna d'Ardenne (NatCen Social Research) |
Research commissioners are increasingly interested in offering an online alternative to surveys that have historically relied on face-to-face data collection. Transitioning a CAPI survey to an online survey can pose practical challenges when it comes to questionnaire design. One challenge is the principle of mobile-first design. CAPI questionnaires will have been designed to be completed by a trained interviewer using a large screen device. Web questionnaires, in contrast, must be accessible to novice users, including those who are participating on small screen devices such as smartphones. Poor mobile design can increase respondent burden and frustration. This increases the risk of missing data and break-off.
Although it is straightforward to render simple questions on mobile screens, some CAPI questions require redesign work to make them smartphone appropriate. In this session we invite survey practitioners to showcase any work they have undertaken to develop mobile versions of more challenging CAPI questions. Examples could include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Questions that include lengthy text or complex instructions
- Household enumeration questions
- Grid based or looped questions
- Questions that make use of hidden codes
- Event History Calendars
We invite practitioners to present findings on their redesign process, which designs were favorable, which were unfavorable, and the methods used for pre-testing their refined mobile-first questions.