You should pay attention to these things when creating your layout in EFS!
- Mobile friendly: In a mobile environment, it is not recommendable to define layouts with pixellevel precision. This is of particular relevance for the new “Responsive layout”. From a methodological point of view, it is usually advisable to let the respondent view as much of the questionnaire page as possible without scrolling. You should therefore avoid excessively large, i.e. high, logos in the header area of the page.
- Resolution: Take into account that some respondents may be using PCs with a lower screen resolution: Your survey should be visible without vertical scrolling even on a screen with a resolution of 800×600. Use the Sizer freeware tool (https://www.brianapps.net/sizer.html), which will allow you to easily test your project in different resolutions.
- Loading times: If you are incorporating your own images into the survey, check the file size of the images. Combined, the images should not be larger than about 30 to 40 kilobytes.
- JavaScript: You can use JavaScript to realize graphical form elements and usability features which facilitate data entry. With JavaScript disabled, those additional options are eliminated, and in extreme cases, the survey can no longer be edited. Especially if you are conducting your project in an environment such as a large company, which may be centrally regulated, you should, in advance, check with the responsible IT department whether JavaScript is enabled in the standard configuration of the staff PCs and, if necessary, refrain from using JavaScript-based features. You can have the respondents’ browsers checked for functioning JavaScript. If JavaScript is not activated, the graphical form elements will automatically be replaced with HTML form elements.
