Very soon after launching Recollective in late 2011, we made sure there was a suite of tools to enable researchers to capture photo, files and webcam or mobile video responses in addition to open-ended text. Those four task types have proven to be hugely popular, forming the core of almost every project done using Recollective.
We're always seeking new ways to make the platform more flexible for research and so this month we are really proud to release a new task type: Multimedia. This task type combines all four primary ways to gather a response - text, photo, video and files. When shaping a question, the task type enables researchers to choose which media types can be used and optionally, set limits for how many of each must be shared by the participant. That means you can now ask a question and let the participant decide the best way for them to respond using any combination of media they wish. What's more, this new task type makes it possible for a respondent to write blog-like entries, adding lots more flexibility and richness to your journal activities.
Setting up the Multimedia task type is a straightforward selection of options, and everything has been optimized for perfect use on smartphones and tablet devices in addition to your desktop.
Improved Task Response Summaries
Prior to this release, the Activity Overview page showed a single overview per task type (e.g. a Photo overview for Photo Task Type). The challenge is that a single task can benefit from multiple response elements (e.g. photos have captions and additional commentary that should ideally be summarized in a word cloud but instead gets lost on a photo wall). Additionally, activities with many tasks caused the UI to display a lot of tabs horizontally which didn't always fit nicely on-screen. We overcome these limitations in an earlier release for the stream-based overviews, but the primary interface below tasks tabs remained unchanged. This release revamps that view to remove the need for multiple tabs beneath the task cards and replace them with just two: Participants and Responses.
The Participants view shows the data table of participant progress and the Responses view shows a summary stream of participant replies. The familiar controls for choosing between stream, word cloud, photo, video or chart for ANY type of task are available, making it very easy to select how you want to view the data for any task.
Alternatively, you can quickly view any task overview just by clicking on the task card. Of course the full response stream is still available by leaving the filter on "All tasks". We think the addition of this new task type, along with the easier way to view task data make for a great improvement to Recollective and hope you enjoy using them.
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