SKIM has been invited to write on mobile conjoint research for the German organization Research & Results. In this publication, our colleague Gerard Loosschilder elaborates on the challenges we face when executing conjoint research on mobile devices, and how these can be overcome.

Conjoint analysis on mobile devices: Keep it simple

Conjoint exercises can be tedious, with many choice tasks and many options per task. The tediousness is a function of the number of attributes and levels, along with other requirements in the research design. It was a manageable issue when respondents were sitting at their computers. However, in a mobile world, taking surveys competes with more exciting activities that one can do on a mobile device. Consumers have more demands on their time and attention, reducing their interest in completing time-consuming conjoint tasks. This resistance may negatively impact response rates and data quality.

How to go mobile

The resistance to tedious or complex tasks on mobile devices is a significant challenge for researchers. One remedy is to simplify the number of choice tasks and the number of options per task. Today, the common number of choice tasks is 10 to 16, with five product profiles per task to choose from, in other words, a 16-by-5 research design. To accommodate mobile users, we have been able to reduce this to a 3-by-3 research design in simple studies…