Web Surveys Optimized for Smartphones: Are there Differences Between Computer and Smartphone Users?

Abstract

This paper shows that computer users and smartphone users taking part in a web survey optimized for smartphones give responses of almost the same quality. Combining a design of one question in each page and innovative page navigation methods, we can get high quality data by both computer and smartphone users. The two groups of users are also compared with regard to their precisely measured item response times. The analysis shows that using a smartphone instead of a computer increases about 20% the geometric mean of item response times. The data analyzed in this paper were collected by a smartphone-friendly web survey. All question texts are short and the response buttons are large and easy to use. As a result, there are no significant interactions between smartphone use and either the length of the question or the age of the respondent. Thus, the longer response times among smartphone users should be explored in other causes, such as the likelihood of smartphone users being distracted by their environment.