Mobile Research

Most of the 2000s were spent on static devices like desktops. The world has transformed since then and so has the use of digital platforms and these days every person is online “on the go”. Almost 95% of the US citizens own a mobile phone and 90% of them have mobile internet access. Moreover, smartphone usage has doubled in the past 3 years with October 2016 marking the first time in history when mobile access through smartphones surpassed desktops.

With the rapid growth of mobile internet access, there is an unprecedented opportunity to tap into this newly assembled base of users to conducted focused and more precise mobile research.

So, what is mobile research?

Mobile research is a rapidly growing discipline of researchers who focus primarily on mobile-based research studies to tap into the flexibility, customizability, accuracy, and localization to get faster and more precise insights.

It’s easy, convenient and straightforward to capture data from anywhere and anytime as it uses the benefits of “mobile” technology to conduct effective “research”.

Applications of Mobile Research

This research type can be used in three major ways:

• Recruiting a panel that will take a survey using their mobile platforms.
• Appoint interviewers to collect responses using tablets or smartphones.
• Collect data without internet (Offline mobile surveys).

In the first method, you can arrange a panel that would respond to your surveys and give you precise insights. As a panel consists of selected, filtered and handpicked individuals who already qualify for the research, asking them questions and getting insights is not just more easier but far more accurate and detailed.

The second method is applied on site for B2B or B2C purposes where you appoint interviewers or in most cases employees, to collect data on mobile devices. This method is very effective during concerts or live events where face to face data collection is possible for understanding user experience and making improvements.

Another way of conducting this research is by collecting data from locations where internet isn’t available. In such cases, the data collected offline will get automatically synced once internet becomes accessible.

Factors Affecting Mobile Research

In mobile research, all respondents take part from a mobile device. This presents researchers with both - opportunities and some restrictions. In such a situation, it is important to keep in mind these factors that affect the mobile research process:

• Reduce the length of the survey for mobile device:

  Scrolling can get on people’s nerves. Respondents do not mind switching pages to answers ‘n’ number of questions but they do mind long scrolling surveys. This may impact the number of people completing the survey and can be quite a decisive factor for mobile research. If your survey has too many questions, you should increase the number of pages rather than increasing the length of a single page that would increase the scrolling time.

  This can also be done by evaluating the questions that you intend to add in this research survey. Removing all the redundant questions will not only shorten the surveys but will also increase the effectiveness of the survey as a shorter survey will be easy and less time consuming to fill out.

• Deciding the question types:

  For any kind of survey, question types are important and when it comes to mobile surveys, this can be all the more important. Create questions that the respondents can easily reply to from their mobile devices. Multiple choice questions are one of the most popularly used questions for a mobile-friendly survey. You may also want to avoid using open ended or descriptive questions because of the limitations that come with the size of the mobile screen. Instead of asking longer questions, you can also split the question into various multiple choice questions which will get you better results.

  Apart from the question types in general, you may want to take care of the answer options too. Offering positive options first and then the negative options will affect the kind of answers you get. For mobile devices, horizontal scrolling should be strictly restricted as it can get very laborious for respondents to do that.

• Careful use of multimedia surveys:

  Loading time of videos and images are different for laptops and for mobile devices. Most mobile devices are operated using the data from phone networks and not ethernet or wi-fi. Due to this, it takes more time for the videos to load on phone than it would take on a laptop.

  Decide on the minimum number of videos that you would like to use on mobile devices that may not impact the number of people taking the mobile research survey.

A few other factors that affect mobile research-

• Create mobile compatible logos.
• Mobile-friendly fonts and texts.
• Option for full screen coverage that will eliminate interruptions from other applications.

Advantages of Mobile Research:

• Faster survey responses:

  As everyone is on mobile devices these days, gauging attention of the respondents via mobile research is prompter than the other means. Due to the various modes like surveys or mobile applications or GPS, getting in touch with your respondents becomes a very easy job. If the survey has direct, relevant questions, survey makers can get faster and more accurate answers via these research surveys.

• More versatile than desktop surveys:

  In case a survey requires the respondents to fill in specific details, uploading images or recording voice notes or collecting information in a diary format is easier using mobile surveys. This is the main reason why these surveys are more adaptable than the traditional ones.

  Quicker survey completion time, higher rate in collecting data, tracking of the respondent’s geo location etc. are other reasons that mobile research surveys are better.

• Better for user interaction:

  These research surveys can be made interactive by asking the respondents to submit videos or images.

Mobile Research Survey Tool

All QuestionPro mobile research survey tools offer 100% mobile compatible surveys. All the surveys created using our online platform are by default mobile compatible with no display restrictions regarding of the type of questions (standard or advanced).

QuestionPro also offers an offline mobile application to conduct these surveys in locations where internet connection isn’t available. Incase the responses are collected offline, they can be conveniently synced when network is accessible again. Due to this integral feature, you can get in touch with respondents that you usually wouldn’t be able to with the other survey tools in the market.

Along with these offerings, QuestionPro also provides 250+ mobile friendly survey templates.