Project Types – methinks Technologies Inc

Project types and tasks

As covered on How to use methinks, Create a research project with thinkers, and Create a Research Project with your users, to start hosting a study in methinks you first need to create a research project that will contain all information about the study you want to host. And, to host a study you need participants to perform tasks.

When creating your research project, you will need to choose what tasks participants will be required to perform and what tasks are optional.

The first step in creating a project is to choose your project type. After your project is created and approved, methinks will provide you with a dashboard that includes the features needed for the selected project type. You can always change, add, and edit your project type and tasks throughout the project, learn how to make changes to your project.

Selecting project types and tasks when setting up your project ensures that participants know before applying which tasks they will have to complete if accepted to participate in your project.

Step 1: Select the project type

After adding the project title and details on your methinks project builder:

Click on + to select a task type.

Choose between Required and Optional for each task.

Note: Required tasks are tasks that a participant is required to complete in order to receive the base compensation. Optional tasks are tasks that a participant can choose to complete to earn extra compensation. You may also set a task as optional if not all participants would be completing it, such as an interview task.

For example, you create a project with a required survey and an optional interview. There are 20 participants in the project. From the 20 participants who have answered the survey, you only want to interview 10, so you select only 10 based on their survey answers to complete the optional interview task.

Even though not all participants would be completing the optional tasks, it's important to set up all required and optional tasks before inviting participants so that they know what to expect.

Pro tip: Click on the drop-down arrow icon to expand the project/task details.

Video interview

By selecting this option and adding its details, participants will know the type and duration of the interview. Use this task to invite participants to a 1:1 interview or focus group.

Note: you can specify other interview details such as schedule and duration when sending interview requests.

Learn how to create different types of interviews.

App Test (Mobile app only)

By selecting this option, participants will know that they will be testing an app for a specified period of time. Use this task to set up a longitudinal study for participants to test your app, for a specific duration and test time per day, if any. You will be able to provide more details about your project in the “App test” menu of the dashboard, once you have set this task here.

Learn how app testing through methinks works, and how to set up an app test.

Survey

By selecting this option, participants will know that they will need to complete a survey/survey. Use this task to invite participants to surveys. You can set up your survey in the “Surveys” menu in the dashboard, once you have set this task here. Learn how to create a survey.
PDF Markup (Desktop only)

By selecting this option, participants will know that they will need to provide feedback on a PDF file that is securely shared with them. Use this task to securely share a PDF file with participants and get feedback on the material. Participants will be able to comment, annotate, and reorder the information in the PDF, as needed. Learn how to set up a PDF feedback session.
Others
If your study involves tasks other than those mentioned above, select this task. Add text on Enter Text to describe what type of task your participants would perform. Example: if you want to host a longitudinal study, you would select Others and type details about it, such as “Test a product for 5 days”.

Pro tip: You can choose as many tasks for a research project as you want.

Step 2: Finalize creating the research project

Once the tasks for your project have been selected, continue by adding Additional Features.
Click on Next to proceed.
Continue by adding the details of your project such as Recruitment, Compensation, and User Agreement.
Once your project has been approved you will find on your dashboard all tooling needed to support your project and tasks.
Use the dashboard to set up video interviews, app tests, surveys, PDF Markup feedback sessions, and other tasks.