Survey Design Issues:Visual Design

CARMA Internet Research ModuleJeff Stanton

May 15-17, 2008 Internet Data Collection Methods (Day 2-2)

Visual Design: An Introduction

May 15-17, 2008 Internet Data Collection Methods (Day 2-3)

Goals of Design

• Maximize reward to the participant while minimizing cost: show respect while highlighting the importance of accurate and complete response

• Reduce the chances of erroneous responses, eliminate extraneous influences that may bias responses

• Translated into visual design and interaction design: Aesthetics, clarity, simplicity, ease of use, proper sequence/flow, error minimization, missing response minimization

May 15-17, 2008 Internet Data Collection Methods (Day 2-4)

Stimulus Processing Steps

• Perceiving• Attending• Comprehending• Retrieving• Deciding• Reporting

Visual

Cognitive

Motor Motivational

May 15-17, 2008 Internet Data Collection Methods (Day 2-5)

Visual Gestalt• What am I supposed to do next? What information

informs the next step? What is my range of action?• Gestalt grouping principles: Proximity, similarity,

connectedness, regionality, continuity, closure

Color: Bland or Bold?

Graphic Elements

Edward Tufte: PowerPoint PhluffAlso see: http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/

Spacing, Blocking, and “Straightlining”

fOnTs

• Plain text generally easier to read than italicized and serif easier than sans-serif; proportionally spaced easier than fixed space

• Use left justification with ragged right for passages of two lines or more

• Black print on top of off-white background the best: medium to medium high contrast

• Avoid light colored or white text on dark backgrounds• Avoid intense/saturated coloring of characters under all

circumstances• Short wavelength colors (blues and purples) harder to focus and

discern for both characters and line art

Screen Size• Notebook and laptop computers range from 1024x768 (4:3) to

1920x1200 (8:5)• iPad (1 and 2): 1024 X 768 pixels• iPhone: 320 pixels wide by 480 pixels high• Blackberry ranges from 160 x 160 up to 324 x 352 • Nokia phones from 176 X 208 up to 352 X 416• Tablets and many phones permit orientation reversal where a page may

appear in landscape or portrait mode• Designing survey pages to fit these different resolutions and maximum

sizes generally calls for compact, focused pages that contain just a few related items and response scales and that minimize scrolling

• Choosing a survey package that can serve different styles of pages based on the kind of device that is requesting the page; Example: Qualtrics provides a mobile application back-end that recognizes the device

Audiences, Bandwidth, and Page Load Time

• While workplace, school, and home computers often have high speed connections to the Internet there are still populations with highly limited bandwidth:– People in rural locations that still depend on dialup or 3G– Technology users in developing countries that may lack high speed

network infrastructure– Mobile users including travelers, students– Users in hotels, cafes, and other locations that offer wifi to large groups

of people• Because some of these groups may be responding to your survey,

page load time can still be an important factor; graphical page backgrounds, logos, graphics, still pictures, and videos all require fast Internet connections