Survey 123- Please Fix Text Wrapping on Mobile Devices

[Amanda__Huber]

Hey ArcGIS Survey123‌ Team, 

Please fix the text wrapping for Select-One questions on mobile devices. It is so awkward where words in these question types get broken - 

I believe this is a reasonable request for something very fundamental that should be fixed. This directly affects accessibility, readability, and the user experience of this question type. 

Thanks, 

Amanda

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Amanda,

In the sample you are providing, what would you expect for a fix?  'knowledgable' and 'professional' are too long to display as one word in the single-choice grid layout as it currently exists.  Would you want to increase the label space (which may be difficult to implement with the number of choices to keep them as discreet touch targets), reduce the font to accommodate the length of the word, or implement hyphenation as part of word wrapping?

[Amanda__Huber]

Hey James, 

Thanks for your reply!

Reducing font size and hyphenation could be a great first step but also have their caveats such as:

• smaller font- impacts readability especially for older audiences
• hyphenation- could be confusing if other hyphens are used in the question.

Thinking outside the box- what if the text on the left wasn't stuck to the left for mobile devices? What if it displayed like this instead, where on a mobile device the text would have more room to "breathe" above the radio icons: 

Again this would only be necessary for mobile devices. 

Let me know what you think. I'd be happy to kick around some more ideas I have. 

Thanks, 

Amanda

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Amanda,

I'm not sure that extending just the first line would work; that's a solution only if the longest word was in the first line.  Given the nature of the labels, in the particular case you're presenting it may be that a single choice grid may not be appropriate; substituting Likert, for example, yields only a little more space being taken up:

 

[Amanda__Huber]

Hi James Tedrick‌, 

Thanks again for your response. 

So if I'm understanding you correctly, any time there's a question with a word(s) over 9 characters in length this question type should not be used? 

I understand your workaround, and I appreciate the suggestion, and I apologize for my simplistic answer but - shouldn't the choice grid question type just be better?

This seems like quite the limitation for this question type especially when it not only affects the questions but also the headers as well: 

I know you're team is working hard on so many great advancements for S123, but It sounds like this question type may need to back to the drawing board due to this very fundamental issue/limitation. 

Thanks. 

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Amanda,

I will say we don't expect every question type to be usable in the same manner for all platforms, given the inherent limitations of screen real estate.  The issues you are highlighting were discussed during the design of the single choice grid; that being said, the main implementation platform driving that question format was the web app (generally a desktop form factor) found the design acceptable on tablets as well. Similarly, while you can create a single choice list with 50 choices using the default or horizontal appearance, we generally expect an author to use minimal or autocomplete because those appearances better meet the usability in navigating those types of choice lists.