Articles

As we are all aware, the world in general is now a much different place compared to what it was 5, 10 and 20 years ago. This also applies to our world; the ‘research world’. At a practical level, this means that we need to continually adapt to the forces that impact the everyday lives of our clients, their customers as our respondents, as well as other stakeholders.

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Not the least important of these forces are the technological ones that influence the way people and businesses now engage with each other.

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The percentage of homes with fixed land lines is now well below the 50% mark, although this may be related to the fact that home ownership has also been trending down.

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In response, the ownership of mobile devices, such as smartphones has been increasing. In fact, the number of mobile phone connections in Aotearoa New Zealand exceeds the population.

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A critical question is how this plays out in our survey work. It is a fact that the large majority of surveys are now being offered as online surveys or multi-mode surveys, with online completion as an option. But what is more interesting is the extent to which online surveys are being completed on smartphones.

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In a recent analysis of the online surveys we regularly complete for a range of clients, we found:

· The extent to which online surveys were being completed on smartphones differed by audience. Generally, online surveys with the general public were more likely to be completed on smartphones than online surveys with businesses and other audiences.

· Amongst our sample of online surveys with the general public, the percentage completing a survey on a smartphone ranged from a low of about 30% to a high of 80% plus. Most other ‘completes’ were on PC’s compared with tablets, etc.  

· The extent to which online surveys with the general public were being completed on smartphones did not appear to differ by survey topic or survey length, and only a little by audience. In the case of online surveys with businesses, sole traders and smaller businesses were more likely than medium sized and larger businesses to complete online surveys on smartphones.

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These findings have important implications in terms of how we run online surveys. Aside from the fact that our survey programme (Voxco) automatically adjusts a survey based on the device that is being used to complete it, we need to be mindful to:

· Design surveys that can be completed on smartphones given the limited screen size (e.g., long response lists should be avoided).

· Prepare survey invitations that are short and to the point (and include hyperlinks as appropriate to provide privacy information, for example).

·  Use appropriate reminder methods (e.g., text reminders instead of email reminders).

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