refine/reduce list of questions, esp. for first version

[jywarren]

Suggestion for first version: choose just 3-5 questions. This may also help to build momentum for the site as the questions will likely have more respondents if there are fewer; can also help to focus on repeated answering over time.

Later, we can expand with a larger set.

[shapironick]

Okie.

Lets think about what kinds of questions there are in order to prioritize. Here is a first draft of the questions: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxkWFSoyVYI3ckZLQlNnZnN3STA/edit

Types:

1. Questions about the home itself (Make/model/manufacture date/purchase date/zipcode/etc).
2. Questions about the household (On who's behalf are you filling out this survey/number of people in the household/move in date/etc)
3. Questions about individual health effects
4. Mitigation techniques
5. Questions about other indicators of poor IAQ (smells like a new car or mold/ sickness in pet/perceptions of air quality)
6. Other risk factors (smoking/work/etc)
7. Demographics

wow. that's a lot. I think this is a good exercise. Here's a stab:

1. A question of the manufactured home might be a place to start (as this is about the where in wherewebreath) - What is the Make, Model, Year of Manufacture and VIN of HUD number of your unit? (this question would ideally also be linked to our FEMA trailer VIN database--see full survey link)
2. A question about who are you answering for is important so the whole family doesn't get lumped into one big bucket of symptoms. Who on who’s behalf are you filling out this survey? a) myself b) my partner or spouse c) my child d) my grand child e) friend f) other _____
3. Symptoms. Have you developed any health issues since moving into the housing unit in question? If so what are your symptoms and how long after moving in did you begin experiencing the symptoms? (self generated list--each item would have a time after moving in space as well. there could be like five blank rows and then under that a button to add more rows)
4. Which of these symptoms do you believe are NOT caused by the trailer? Please list the symptom and what you think it might be caused by including aging.
5. Is there a particular smell to your home?

Some push back: Answering three questions could take just 10 seconds of time and people wanting to get their stories recorded could be left feeling frustrated and let down. We can always lead with questions that are more popular but we should at least give people the opportunity to keep going if we have some idea of what they will want to tell and have recorded and what we will need to know in order to make those claims scientifically robust (or scientifically questionable if they have pica for embalming fluid).

[jywarren]

1 & 2 could be part of the signup process, though, right? in that they aren't questions that we'd graph or get quantitative about?

I like the categorization -- maybe we could start with one category, then you "graduate" to the next batch. Or we "release" the next batch after 3 or 6 months. Just trying to think creatively here.

[shapironick]

Hmm. Good point. But I think we should get quantitative about what kind of home it is, as that is going to be a major commonality--and people will likely want to talk to other folks that have the same make/model especially as they are likely to be correlated with formaldehyde exposure (as CDC found with the different makes of FEMA trailers).

The second question is pretty lame i know but it also gives people the possibility of filling it out for every member of their household. If we just have that as the registration then only one of the many embodied stories will be captured (for instance some mobile homes have 7 sick people in them).

The sequencing bit is tricky, but I think we could definitely tier the categories.

[jywarren]

Are people going to be sharing their VIN #s? 'cause we can still make use of that information even if it's not a "question" -- or we could try to get people to group by manufacturer or by year or something. "2006 Tiogas" or something...?

filling it out for every member of their household

For this, that may create quite a bit of interface design and database complexity; not to shoot it down, but it's a big enough feature that I think it deserves its own issue; would you mind creating it?

[shapironick]

I think people could share part of their VINs publicly. The full VIN is useful to us for helping to minimize false users (as they are unique numbers) and also useful for them to enter to query our FEMA trailer VIN data base to see if their's is a FEMA trailer. I think in our epic meeting we discussed having the first 11 digits be potentially shareable (Which relate to: World Manufacturer Identifier/Vehicle Attributes /Check Digit/Model/Year/Plant Code) and then the last six digits or maybe four of the last six digits would not be shared as they are sequential numbers and could potentially be used to reveal identity. HUD number for manufactured housing (as opposed to the travel trailers where are regulated by DOT) I'm less familiar with: http://www.mcgarryandmadsen.com/inspection/Blog/Entries/2012/12/27_How_do_I_find_out_how_old_a_mobile_home_is_and_who_manufactured_it.html

[jywarren]

Hi, Nick - since we're moving #2 to a new issue, could you find one more question that could fit into a reduced set? These are the ones I'm going to try to do designs for in #8

[shapironick]

Hiya-- Adding to the list of five questions above? How about some version of:

Do you feel healthier when you spend less time in the trailer? If so, how much time do you have to spend outside of the trailer to feel better? (if possible from the symptoms entered earlier each one would be able to be qualified in terms of abatement)

[jywarren]

Awesome, Nick would you be able to work with Nicole to make this set into a Google Form? There lots of small things like whether to use check boxes or radio buttons and other details that we could try out by making a Google Form first. On May 15, 2014 10:44 AM, "shapironick" notifications@github.com wrote:

Hiya-- Adding to the list of five questions above? How about some version of:

Do you feel healthier when you spend less time in the trailer? If so, how much time do you have to spend outside of the trailer to feel better? (if possible from the symptoms entered earlier each one would be able to be qualified in terms of abatement)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-43218416 .

[shapironick]

Yes! Could certainly do that. I've emailed her. Hopefully we can get something together soon. Its been about a week and change since she said she would get us questions in two weeks so the timing seems good.

[shapironick]

Hi Jeff--Nicole has put up the beginnings of the survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1G7pi27dNkUHfYFbj94b4c5jLOiFHySG5_xqpl6bVDf8/edit#

I've sent you an invitation. I'll work on adding some more Qs after work today.

I think there are a few questions about other potential exposures that we should ask. An example of another DIY health survey is here: http://www.stopmcs.org/?page_id=1165

On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Jeffrey Warren notifications@github.comwrote:

Awesome, Nick would you be able to work with Nicole to make this set into a Google Form? There lots of small things like whether to use check boxes or radio buttons and other details that we could try out by making a Google Form first. On May 15, 2014 10:44 AM, "shapironick" notifications@github.com wrote:

Hiya-- Adding to the list of five questions above? How about some version of:

Do you feel healthier when you spend less time in the trailer? If so, how much time do you have to spend outside of the trailer to feel better? (if possible from the symptoms entered earlier each one would be able to be qualified in terms of abatement)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub< https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-43218416>

.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-43221081 .

[novakn]

Hi guys, Nicole here. I just got myself signed up for GitHub and trying to figure out how to navigate these forums.

The link Nick sent is to a (rough) draft of the full survey. I've added in some of the questions from the DIY survey Nick sent, and am going through and trying to convert questions (smoking, income) to more standardized formats.

HOWEVER, reading back through your conversations it looks like Jeff is looking for a reduced version. I've made that here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1BvjKvH5dUFNjhhDdA4NNtsTHiXgurjJN3-c72mcrvFM/viewform?usp=send_form

I don't quite understand what it is going to be used for (piloting?) but Nick and I can discuss that sometime in the next few days.

[shapironick]

Hot damn!! That big list looks good! Really excellent Nicole! Did you hand enter 76 different mobile home manufacturers into that list!? whoa.

The VIN/HUD numbers will be entered in the sign-up page most likely (as mentioned in #7) so i've deleted it from the survey but other than that it looks great and its wonderful that you are citing why you made certain decisions in the form itself.

I've added in a couple headers so that the groupings of questions match with those outlined in issue #4.

Nicole notes in the survey that technically the question of "how often does anyone smoke inside the home?" should be asked up front as it won't change, we could move that up to the home and household section. She combined the demographics and other risk factors questions and I see why because asking about occupation leads into occupational exposures. if we are looking for community building spaces in between blocks of questions we could look for they could be cut into two sections as there is a lot of questions in a row.

[shapironick]

Just one quick follow up. At some point we should talk about the potentially different understandings of what pilot testing means to all of us. For epidemiology, @novakn was telling me that a pilot study uses all the same questions as the full study just with a smaller audience and that without the full set not much can be done with the data. I may be getting this wrong, but it seems like the kind of pilot site @jywarren proposed at the beginning of this thread would involve a limited number of questions posed to the same audience (the internet) as the later full version.

So as we move forward we can think about the ways that we can keep active participation, community building, epi methods, and our limited budget all in mind. I'm not so sure of how much the coding of this all will cost so here's to hoping we can get a robust beta up next month!

[novakn]

Hey guys, I'd be happy to have the piloting conversation anytime. I will be traveling the week of June 7-14 so sometime before then might be easier. Let me know.

[shapironick]

Heya--Thanks Nicole! I wonder if we can just simply run the full survey in the beta stage, unless we think there will be funding limitations on this. If its not a funding issue, we may be able to just plow a head and talk after your travels? Happy trails!

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 4:54 PM, novakn notifications@github.com wrote:

Hey guys, I'd be happy to have the piloting conversation anytime. I will be traveling the week of June 7-14 so sometime before then might be easier. Let me know.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-44426504 .

[jywarren]

Yes, sorry for my slowness; this week has been super busy and we've also been finding a developer to begin coding this all.

To disambiguate "pilot" -- I suggested constructing a "mini" questionnaire of just a few questions, mainly because it's one of the only ways I can think of to launch this on the more limited budget we've currently got. We have to cut back somewhere for this first version, and we don't want to cut on security or privacy or basic interface. But we can save some significant time and resources by sticking to a reduced list of questions, until we have the resources to do a Phase II. Does that make sense?

I'll check out the questionnaire as you've put it together -- thanks!!!

[jywarren]

I think the short survey list looks concise enough to move forward on -- thank you so much, Nicole. I'm posting some questions over on #8 where we'll be doing the design work for the forms.

[jywarren]

We should continue to talk about a longer list of Phase II questions and planning for that, in this thread.

[jywarren]

This is actually pretty much done, and if you're satisfied with the short questionnaire until we do a Phase II, I'm going to close this. Pls reopen if necessary!

I'll make a separate "Longer survey for Phase II" issue.

[mmnoo]

Should users be able to answer "I dont know" for a question like "Do you believe your memory troubles are due to your home environment?"?

If for the proposes of the study, that still means no, I think it would be good to give an outlet option for nitpickers.

[shapironick]

I think that's a great idea. Please do allow users to say they don't know for relevant questions.

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 10:41 PM, Melissa notifications@github.com wrote:

Should users be able to answer "I dont know" for a question like "Do you believe your memory troubles are due to your home environment?"?

If for the proposes of the study, that still means no, I think it would be good to give an outlet option for nitpickers.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50406160 .

[novakn]

I agree!

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 3:23 AM, shapironick notifications@github.com wrote:

I think that's a great idea. Please do allow users to say they don't know for relevant questions.

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 10:41 PM, Melissa notifications@github.com wrote:

Should users be able to answer "I dont know" for a question like "Do you believe your memory troubles are due to your home environment?"?

If for the proposes of the study, that still means no, I think it would be good to give an outlet option for nitpickers.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub < https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50406160>

.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50443787 .

[mmnoo]

Regarding more questionnaire wording, should "Do you feel healthier when you spend less time in the trailer?" be "Do you feel healthier in general when you spend less time in the trailer?"

Just thinking if the user has just been asked many specific symptom questions like "Do you believe your X is due to your home environment?", the above question might seem too similar. The in general wording might help differentiate it...

Also regarding question order, for the final survey version, what do you guys think about mixing up the very repetitive symptom questions (do you experience X?, do you believe it is due to your home env't?, how long does it take to alleviate it?, 19 times over) with some of the other questions in between to break the monotony of them up a bit and lessen the likelihood that a user will get bored and quit the survey half way through.

[novakn]

Hey Melissa,

I've enjoyed going through the new site--it looks great. I have never seen a website come together before so this is very interesting.

I feel good about your idea to add "in general" to the first questioned mentioned.

I can see your point about the repetitive survey questions--I am a little worried that distributing them throughout the survey could be confusing or could prime people to respond differently based on the other questions surrounding them.

Another option (and I'm sorry if this is annoying since you have already made these questions) would be to ask about a few symptoms at a time (If you look at the Google survey you can see how they were divided into categories of 3 to 6 symptoms each-- fatigue/cognitive, respiratory, skin, other). We could ask the Yes(often), Yes(sometimes), No questions for one set of symptoms at a time, and then have a follow-up page that asks about their attribution to home environment only for the symptoms for which they said "Yes". Would this be ok?

This is actually returning slightly to the format of the symptom survey ours is based on--I attached a screenshot.

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Melissa notifications@github.com wrote:

More questionnaire wording:

Should "Do you feel healthier when you spend less time in the trailer?" be "Do you feel healthier in general when you spend less time in the trailer?"

Just thinking if the user has just been asked many specific symptom questions like "Do you believe your X is due to your home environment?", the above question might seem too similar.

Also regarding question order, for the final survey version, what do you guys think about mixing up the very repetitive symptom questions (do you experience X?, do you believe it is due to your home env't?, how long does it take to alleviate it?, 19 times over) with some of the other questions in between to break the monotony of them up a bit and lessen the likelihood that a user will get bored and quit the survey half way through.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50515138 .

[shapironick]

Thanks Nicole! I think those changes would certainly help useability and reduce clicks and page load time as well as many people will be on slowish internet and page loads may be a key time of frustration/boredom.

Just so you know, the screen shot didn't come through as I think you emailed in the shot as an attachment. I'm no github pro, but maybe images have to be dragged and dropped directly into the text field on hithub?

Is it unprofessional to have a fun mid-way point page? Like we could have these puppies I met in a trailer park in Texas saying encouraging words "Keep going! Half way done!"

[mmnoo]

Thanks Nicole.

Your suggestions on the questionnaire are probably doable, but they would require big logical changes to the code and add extra complexity (sounds worth it perhaps for usability). There is no allocated time left for phase I, but maybe phase II?

Either way, if that suggestion could be its own separate issue, that would probably help for keeping track of the issue months from now. (I am hoping to get the changes I have been working on this week up in the next day or so. The changes include the full set of phase I survey questions, so you guys will soon have an opportunity to play with that)

[novakn]

regarding puppies: arooo!

Melissa, thanks, and my apologies if it is a lot of trouble. I think it would be fine to save it for phase II. The grid used in the initial survey is pasted below.

[mmnoo]

Its a good idea, not 'trouble'! Usability is important, no apologies necessary!

"Big logical changes' might have been an overstatement anyway now that I have thought about it a bit more... there just isnt allocated time in this phase for it.

(Intonation is hard with text-based conversations. I worry sometimes that my straightforwardness comes off as catty, that's not my intention!)

[shapironick]

I opened a new issue for this.

I'll try again later for the puppies :)

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Melissa notifications@github.com wrote:

Its a good idea, not 'trouble'! Usability it important, no apologies necessary!

"Big logical changes' might have been an overstatement anyway now that I have thought about it a bit more... there just isnt allocated time in this phase for it.

(Intonation is hard with text-based conversations. I worry sometimes that my straightforwardness comes off as catty, that's not my intention!)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50637831 .

[jywarren]

I'm going to respond on this a bit today... Like breaking up the repetitive questions, great idea, and am thinking the long responses/comments after each section could be an opportunity to break up the questionnaire and offer a different kind of activity in between... Like the puppies but more like

Q, Q, Q, Q, discuss and story telling with fellow contributors, Q, Q, Q...

I'll try to put this suggestion on the relevant other issues too. Sorry, phone typing and working on the road in new Orleans this week. On Jul 30, 2014 12:57 PM, "shapironick" notifications@github.com wrote:

I opened a new issue for this.

I'll try again later for the puppies :)

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Melissa notifications@github.com wrote:

Its a good idea, not 'trouble'! Usability it important, no apologies necessary!

"Big logical changes' might have been an overstatement anyway now that I have thought about it a bit more... there just isnt allocated time in this phase for it.

(Intonation is hard with text-based conversations. I worry sometimes that my straightforwardness comes off as catty, that's not my intention!)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub < https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50637831>

.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/publiclab/wherewebreathe/issues/4#issuecomment-50654396 .

[jywarren]

I agree with Melissa that we want to avoid restructuring things too much at this stage since we've already begun implementation. Melissa - would displaying narratives (comments/discussion) at the end of each question group be a problem? Let's discuss under #1.

I'm going to re-close this issue, actually, and try to break out any unresolved questions in new issues with more specific names. If you feel strongly about unresolved issues here, please open new issues -- for example:

• breaking up questionnaire flow to address exhaustion (or is this addressed with the narratives occurring after each question group?)