It’s undeniable that people are increasingly relying on their mobile devices and smartphones for everything from shopping for the perfect gift to finding the best spot to eat. Last autumn, Apple announced that users now have 1 million apps to choose from in their App Store. As a result, optimising for mobile has become a top priority for many businesses in order to keep up with this evolving trend.
As you design your next SurveyMonkey survey, keep in mind that many of your respondents may be taking it on their phone or tablet while they’re out and about. Ever wonder what kinds of things can impact your mobile survey’s completion rate? We’re here to share a few of the things we’ve observed as well as some quick tips to help optimise your survey for those who are away from their desktops.
Let’s take a look!
The first thing you might assume about your survey’s length is that the longer it is, the less likely a person will complete it if they’re on a mobile device. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. We’ve found that the number of questions in a survey doesn’t impact the completion rate among people who complete the survey on mobile vs. non-mobile devices. Whether you have five, fifteen, or thirty questions in your survey, the device that the survey-taker is using does not impact whether they’ll complete it.
The same is true about the number of pages in your survey. The real impact lies in how many questions are on each page. There is a point where scrolling on a mobile device negatively impacts the completion rate more than if the next question appeared on the next page. So keep it “scroll-lite” and resist the urge to make your survey so long that respondents find themselves getting a thumb-ache.
Another helpful tip when designing a mobile-friendly survey is to think about question types. Including multiple choice questions can boost your mobile completion rates, as they make it easier for people to respond on a small screen, even when they’re balancing a coffee in the other hand!
As you might expect, using essay and open-response questions (where a keyboard truly comes in handy) tends to reduce completion rates for mobile surveys. Likewise, complex matrix and image question types can be tricky for people responding on the go. What about demographic questions? The good news is there’s little difference in completion rates between mobile and non-mobile users. Success here depends more on whether your respondent is willing to share information such as their name, address or age.
In summary, alongside following general survey best practices, our main advice for providing a great mobile survey experience is to limit the number of questions per page and stick to simple multiple choice questions. If these options don’t work, consider inviting more people to take your survey and allowing extra time to gather that all-important number of responses.
