1. Remember the reality of the real estate. Mobile phone screens are a small fraction of the size of PC screens and, though larger, tablet screens are still only half or less the size of PC screens.

2. Design for both portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) view. Your respondents will choose their preferred view, so the questionnaire must work in both orientations:

a. Item lists should be short enough for the full list to be visible in landscape view.

b. Scales should be narrow enough to be fully visible in portrait view.

c. To be safe, mention the size of the scale in the question text (i.e., using the 5-point scale below) in case they can only see part of it. Also, consider using the top of the scale on the left, since it will not make sense for a scale to end at 3—but if you start at 1, they might not realize a scale goes all the way to 10, because they can only see 7 or 8 without sliding the screen to the right.

3. Reduce the number of words in the questions. People communicate with fewer words on mobile. We may need to replace longer questions with shorter ones that retain the same meaning and remain well defined. This could be a real challenge!

4. Redesign Flash elements. Flash is not supported on mobile devices.

5. Start with the mobile design and size up. A design that works well for a mobile will work well on a PC. So size up instead of starting with a PC-design and trying to scale down.

6. Design the functional elements first. Anything that people have to touch, like “next” buttons, radio buttons or check boxes, should be as large as possible and have as much space around them as possible. Traditionally, questionnaire designers focused on the text then fitted the functional elements around it. In a mobile world, we need to reverse the process.

7. Test on multiple devices. Also test thoroughly in both portrait and landscape view.

8. Avoid scrolling designs. Instead of asking people to scroll or pinch to expand, reduce the number of items in a list or grid. Scrolling is much faster on the mobile phone (so users may see just the beginning and end of the list and miss the items in the middle). The transition to mobile can be an ideal time to rethink the design of grid questions.

9. Make text boxes as large as you can. Research shows that the larger the box, the more words are typed in open-ended responses.

10. Resist the temptation to use the full functionality of the phone. Features like the spinning “wheels” seen in mobile calendars are attractive from the design point of view, but could be awkward for users and cause incompatible or unexpected results.

Questions 

1. Why should you design mobile-friendly questionnaires in both portrait and landscape views?

2. Why should you test your mobile friendly questionnaire on multiple mobile devices?