PAPOR is the Pacific chapter of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). I met the President of PAPOR at the Annual AAPOR Conference and she asked me if I would write an article for the next newsletter for their “New Member Spotlight”. It came out a while ago, but I’m just now getting around to posting it up here for all my lovely readers (Hi Mom!).
2009 PAPOR Summer Newsletter
(Apologies for the PDF)
All it is is an introduction to yours truly and a brief foray into my favorite survey research topic, mobile web survey design.
If you don’t want to open the PDF (and I don’t blame you) here’s the bulk of what I had to say on the topic:
While some of the complications that make surveys so challenging are almost always present, we are now facing issues that were largely unimaginable just a few years ago. The increase in cell-only and cell-mostly households has lead many to question the validity of telephone surveys. The legal, ethical, sampling and measurement issues are all cause for concern but mobile phones present another challenge for survey research in that they are now being used, with great frequency, to access the web.
One concern with this is that the small size of the screen can cause a web survey to appear very differently than on a desktop. This is problematic because research has shown that the visual presentation of the survey may influence the respondent’s choices. The burden on the respondent may also increase because the user experience on a mobile is very different than a desktop or laptop. For example, where a mouse can easily select small radio buttons, they can be much harder to select with a finger on a 3×5″ touch screen. Grids can be even more problematic on a mobile device. Next time you have some time to kill, I implore you to try responding to a web survey with your smart-phone. Does this mean we should have different versions of a web survey specifically for the mobile? Should we restrict web survey access to desktop or laptop computers? What is the likelihood of responding to a web survey via a mobile device and is it likely to increase? These are just some of the questions in need of research.
Good points about cell phones, and I never even thought about the impact of cell phones on web surveys. Perhaps one technique would be to add some JavaScript that advises cell phone users that the survey results are likely to be skewed when taken on a cell phone, blocks answers, and asks them to come back when they are on a laptop or desktop.