Mobile phones are increasingly being used as devices to respond to web survey invitations. There are a number of commonly held beliefs of best design for mobile phone surveys, but much less empirical evidence. One frequent example where a series of questions with the same response options are aligned in grid format, with the common response options arrayed at the top of the grid with the question stems aligned to the left of the gird. Radio buttons generally are set in the grid coordinating one response option with one question stem. The held belief is that this format, common in PC web surveys, are more problematic for mobile devices based on understood principles of visual design and usability (e.g. selecting a radio button). However, little research has explored how this design compares to other options, and if differences do arises, what design produces the best data quality.
The objective of this experiment is to compare the standard static grid design, with an alternative dynamic grid design. Dynamic grids present the response options as a constant display aligned below a question of the set normally in a grid. When a response is chosen, the response options remain unmoving, but the question dynamically changes to the next question of the set and so on. The dynamic grid is intended to better control for the possible visibility and usability issues. This experiment is applied to two self-completion modules already carried in the IP that use several grids, SF-12 and Mobile Device Use. As these are both self-completion, respondents in both the web and face-to-face conditions were included.
Respondents were assigned to the experiment individually within the course of the questionnaire. There was a random assignment of grid-type at the start of each module included in the experiment, independent of the other assignment. The controlling variables for this assignment are:
gridsf12w10 in record j_indresp_ip: Grid type assignment for the SF-12 module
1 Static grid
2 Dynamic grid
gridmobdevw10 in record j_indresp_ip: Grid type assignment for the Mobile Device Use module
1 Static grid
2 Dynamic grid
Variables used for this experiment are on record j_indresp_ip:
scsf1, scsf2a, scsf2b, scsf3a, scsf3b, scsf4a, scsf4b, scsf6a, scsf6b, scsf6c, scwrrymod1, scwrrymod2, scwrrymod3, scwrrymod4, scwrrymod5, scwrrymod6
