Respondents unable to change responses to matrix questions on mobile | XM Community
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Respondents unable to change responses to matrix questions on mobile

  • September 15, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 36 views
J

I have several 7-point bipolar matrix questions in my survey. When taking the survey on mobile, which most of my respondents will probably do, they are unable to change their responses after they choose a value. As soon as they click on something, the accordion for that question closes and cannot be reopened.
There's no such problem when taking the survey on the computer - responses can be changed until the respondent moves on to the next page.
I feel there must be an obvious solution to this that I'm not seeing, like a setting that I've got wrong, but I've been trying to solve this for days and am getting nowhere! Any help deeply appreciated.

Abhishek_U

4 replies

MatthewM
Level 6 ●●●●●●
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  • MatthewM
  • Level 6 ●●●●●●
  • September 16, 2020

Hi JenniPW ,
Do you want to share the preview link so Community members could test or see for themselves? If the accordions really are not reopening in your survey I would suggest contacting Qualtrics support.

J
  • JenniPW
  • Author
  • September 16, 2020

MatthewM
Good idea, thanks! Here are just the items in question:

MatthewM
Level 6 ●●●●●●
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  • MatthewM
  • Level 6 ●●●●●●
  • September 16, 2020

Thanks for sharing the link! Using my iPhone I answered the first item and experienced what you described; the accordion would not reopen when I clicked it to try to expand it again. I also noticed a few other unusual things:

  1. The numbers that appear under the chevron when a choice is selected are 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12. That might be a sign that the values need to be recoded.

  2. After selecting an item, this was inconsistent, but often the next accordion that opened was not the following one, but a later, seemingly random one further down the screen.

  3. Responsiveness of items in general to touch was inconsistent; sometimes they would open, many times they would not.

I was only able to get the accordions to "reopen" by rotating my mobile device to landscape orientation after selecting an item. (When rotating, the question changes from mobile view to desktop view, with bubble choices.) Then when I rotated back to portrait the accordion for the item I had previously answered would stay open, and I could change it and open and close other accordions.
But in my opinion, and you will probably agree, this is not an intuitive or optimal experience for the respondent. Although you could add a message instructing respondents to rotate their device when they answer this question, as a Qualtrics customer you shouldn't have to compensate for what may be a performance issue in the system.
This may or may not help, but I noticed that there were three of this same type of question on the same screen. I don't know for certain but that may be difficult to present that many items in a mobile view, so you might try putting each question on its own page and retest.
If no one else in the Community has any further insight I would suggest reaching out to Qualtrics Support for assistance.
Hope you get somewhere with this!

J
J
  • JenniPW
  • Author
  • September 17, 2020

Thanks so much for checking and for your advice! I tried splitting the questions onto separate pages, but that hasn't done the trick. The choices are appearing as 1-7 for me.
I just found that if I turn my phone screen off and then on again, the accordions will reopen and I can change previously selected answers - until I select one on an unanswered question, then everything freezes again. I agree that this workaround and the one you discovered are not ideal - I suspect many of my respondents will give up at this point (I think some did on the pilot test for this reason).
I'll try contacting Qualtrics Support - thanks for this recommendation too.

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