Best Practices for Mobile Surveys
Many factors need to considered, when designing surveys for use on mobile devices. Several of these factors are addressed in this topic.
If a survey uses a template, the template is not applied when the survey is viewed on a mobile device because most templates are not optimized for mobile. If you want to create an appropriately sized template to be used for mobile, you could add HTML content with a conditional section for mobile runtime that included a smaller image. See How You Customize Surveys for Use on Mobile Devices.
Mobile optimization automatically resizes fonts for a user-friendly mobile experience. Therefore, font size, even if you modify the default setting, is ignored on mobile devices when mobile optimization is enabled.
Keep in mind that certain fonts are not supported or consistently display on every mobile device. The list of widely supported fonts for most mobile devices includes the following.
- Arial
- Courier and Courier New
- Georgia (with the exception of Android)
- Helvetica
- Times and Times New Roman
- Trebuchet MS (with the exception of Android)
- Verdana
For basic surveys, class and style button properties are ignored on mobile devices when mobile optimization is enabled. However, you can modify button properties on advanced surveys by using a WebDAV client to access your Customer Portal file structure, and then opening the /cp/customer/assets/feedback folder to edit the mobile.css file. See Overview of WebDAV and Customer Portal Folder Structure.
When using case and conditional sections with runtime variables, it’s important to remember the following:
- Mobile conditional sections work when a mobile device is detected even if mobile optimization is disabled on the survey.
- If the mobile user selects the Switch to Desktop Mode link, available on the first survey page, all content that displays will be desktop content, even if a mobile device is being used. (Switch to Desktop Mode is available only on the first page of the survey.)
- When using desktop and mobile runtime variables, we recommend that you create content for both variables on one page. You can do this either with a conditional section for each variable, or by adding content that appears for both variables. Otherwise, the runtime variable for which no content is defined will display a blank page.
Mobile preview is a limited, browser-based preview that gives you a general idea of how your survey might look on a smaller device when you are designing your survey from your desktop. With that in mind, always test your surveys on applicable mobile devices and browsers before you launch them. See Preview Your Survey for Mobile.
Track mobile survey use by analyzing usage trends with our standard reports. In addition, the Mobile Survey Trends Dashboard displays all three mobile survey reports in one place for easy analysis. See View Survey Results.
The three mobile survey reports (Mobile Survey Trend, Mobile Survey Browser Trend, and Mobile Survey Operating System Trend) and the dashboard are found in Public Reports/Feedback/Survey Responses/Mobile Surveys. A fourth report (Standard Versus Mobile Survey Trend), which is not included on the dashboard, is also found in Public Reports/Feedback/Survey Responses.
- Mobile Survey Trend shows the number of mobile surveys started and completed over time as well as the completion rate.
- Mobile Survey Browser Trend shows the number of mobile surveys submitted per browser over time.
- Mobile Survey Operating System Trend shows the number of mobile surveys submitted per operating system over time.
- Standard Versus Mobile Survey Trend shows the number of surveys taken on a mobile device versus surveys taken on a standard web device, such as a desktop. If no columns for mobile devices display on the report, either the survey was not enabled for mobile optimization or no mobile devices were used to take the survey.
Because different mobile devices and browsers display surveys in different ways, we recommend testing your surveys on applicable mobile devices and browsers before you launch them.