Seven Best Practices to Improve Mobile Survey Participation

Summary

The number of survey starts had more than doubled in just three years: from 10% in 2011 to 25% in 2014, according to FocusVision/Decipher’s internal stats.  That number was even higher for clients using internal customer lists. Unfortunately, most surveys then were  ¾  and still are not  ¾  optimized to the mobile screen.  As a result, patterns then and now are similar: mobile respondents were twice as likely to drop out than a PC respondent.  And when they did complete the survey, it took them nearly 50% more time to do so. FocusVision seven best practices to make surveys mobile friendly remain valuable today:

• Mobile first : Design for the phone and build from there
• Usable: Verify content fits and text is readable. Vertical not Horizontal.
• Performance: Does it feel sluggish, or do pages and content load without delay? Use a light system and ideally offline, if on the go.
• Say no to Grids!: Substantial improvements when using alternatives (but with the same data)
• Data integrity: Question structure and labeling consistency.
• Auto-save: Enable it! Rates jumped 10 percent.
• Survey Functionality: Use touch-and-tap events (point-and-click for PC). Avoid pinch and zoom!

One FocusVision client followed these best practices with a positive outcome: they reduced mobile dropout rates by 40%.