We just wanted to write a blog post to confirm that from Wave 2 of the study onward, we will no longer be offering the Expiwell app as a way of taking part in the study.
We wanted to let you know that if you are using the app, you can still be part of the study. The method of participation would switch over to email and website, which can be done automatically for you when you finish Wave 1 of the study. The date that Wave 1 is finished will be different for each person, but you will be told within the relevant study task.
While we know that some of you might be disappointed with this decision, there were a few reasons we made this choice that we wanted to share with you.
First, the app was quite difficult for people to use – both for us as researchers and for some participants. It could be a bit fiddly and sometimes it would have an unexpected glitch that meant someone could not take part in the task as they wanted.
Second, it lacked flexibility. If a task had timed out by one minute, there was no option for someone to complete that task or for us to re-open it for them. This meant that if someone needed to swap the day that they did the task, it was simply not possible for them to do this within the app.
Three, very few people were using the app for this study. This meant that it was not worth it for us to keep paying to run two separate options of participation, given the difficulties that the app caused some participants, and the need to code a separate version of the study.
We hope that our app users will understand the reasons for this shift, and we hope you will stick with us and keep going with the email and web version when the time comes.
If you are an Expiwell app user for this study and you have any questions, please do contact us.
Ngā mihi,
Matt, Claire, and Paul
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