If your goal is to conduct research with on-the-go people, what better way than with mobile research? That was part of the thinking behind Marriott International’s decision to conduct a mobile-based study with users of Marriott Mobile, the mobile version of the Marriott Web site.

Marriott Mobile debuted in August 2008 and was a smash hit, generating $2 million in gross revenues by the end of that year. Wanting to keep pace with technology and with travelers’ evolving needs, Marriott sought to add new features in 2009 and so turned to research firm Vision Critical for help with developing a mobile survey. “We wanted a quick way to determine what our mobile customers are looking for, which is precisely what the [mobile survey] allowed us to do,” says Gina Villavicencio, senior manager, user research, Marriott International - eCommerce. “The survey enabled us to speak to 700 mobile users in roughly 30 days and very quickly get insight into today’s mobile customers.”

The brief questionnaire included some general-impression questions, some usage pattern questions and also queried about a city guide feature which offered information on restaurants and other attractions in cities with Marriott hotels. “We wanted to understand how our mobile users would respond to the launch,” says Villavicencio. “The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, we also benefited from a halo effect where those who clicked on the city guide link rated the mobile experience higher.”

Marriott had a wealth of data from other research approaches on the mobile site - online surveys, secondary data, etc. - but to get feedback on the mobile site it made sense to use a mobile-based survey approach, Villavicencio says. There was some prior experience with a mobile-based survey, thanks to a previous ad-effectiveness test, so the researchers knew at the outset what they could and couldn’t do, and what kind of information they could e...