Smartphone and tablet ownership continues to rise in the U.S. and internet activity on these mobile devices is beginning to surpass such activity on desktop and laptop computers giving rise to a non-negligible volume of online surveys completed using mobile browsers. While the basic research into optimizing the survey experience and data collection on mobile devices is growing there are still fundamental gaps in our knowledge of how to optimize certain types of questions in the mobile setting. Specifically, survey researchers are still evaluating which online design principles directly translate into presentation on mobile devices and which principles have to be modified or extended to for these devices. Beyond enhancements or modifications for touch specific mobile devices, smartphones and tablets offer additional capabilities and features such as voice-to-text, real-time GPS and front/rear facing cameras that could be used to streamline or open new types of survey data that could be collected. However, little is known about the use of these features in the context of mobile survey data collection.

In this presentation we explore differences in standard online survey questions types and touch specific variants and the use of mobile specific features such as voice-to-text in the context of a mobile browser survey. Specifically, we compare results for survey questions posed in both a Likert scale radio button format as well as a slider format presented on smartphones using a randomized cross-over design. We also examine primacy/recency effects from an experiment that randomized smartphone participants to radio button or drop down/roller bar lists of varying lengths. Differences in responses gathered for open-ended questions where respondents entered results using their smartphone's keyboard or voice-to-text feature are also investigated. Finally, mobile respondent attitudes and propensity for using cameras for data capture and submission as part of a mobile browser survey are reported.