Step

Medable Axon provides a single-question step and a form step that can contain more than one question. You can also use an instruction step to introduce the survey or provide specific instructions and a completion step to show a user that they have completed the given task.

Below, we will describe each step type in detail and give you a visual of what that step type looks like in the app.

Autocomplete

This step allows a user to configure a set of autocomplete options to to guide the user into typing something that is configured in a list. You can force the user to choose something from the list or allow the user to type something in outside of the configured list.

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Autocomplete Step

Barcode Scanner Step

Some studies may need the ability for a patient to scan a barcode and send it back to the study team. Use cases vary by study needs. Scanning of DNA Kits, Study Drug or Connected Devices are common examples for utilizing the Barcode Scanner Step. Now you can add it to Consent, Eligibility, or Survey Task Types to capture a barcode during any of those tasks.

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

NOTE: Once the step recognizes the barcode, it will go immediately to the next step in the Task.

Boolean (Yes/No)

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Boolean Step (With Optional checked) – Notice the "Skip Question" link is available to the user

Completion

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Completion Step

Continuous Scale

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

** Notes a user facing field

Parameters:

• Default Value
• Fraction Digits
• Minimum
• Maximum

Validations:

Static (always the same validation):

• max value <= min value

Dynamic (depend on the value of Fraction Digits):

Note: the value of Fraction Digits is clamped to be between 0 and 4 --i.e. if it is less than 0 it turns into 0, conversely if it's bigger than 4 it is converted to 4.

• If Fraction Digits = 0:
  • min value can't be less than -10000
  • max value can't be greater than 10000
• If Fraction Digits = 1:
  • min value can't be less than -1000
  • max value can't be greater than 1000
• If Fraction Digits = 2:
  • min value can't be less than -100
  • max value can't be greater than 100
• If Fraction Digits = 3:
  • min value can't be less than -10
  • maX value can't be greater than 10
• If Fraction Digits = 4:
  • min value can't be less than -1
  • max value can't be greater than 1

App Example of Continuous Scale Step

}

}

Date/Time

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Date/Time Step

}

}

Email

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Email Step

Form

A form step allows you to display/capture multiple questions/answers in one scrolling screen. A good example of this would be a registration task that allows you to capture the basic demographic information needed to register a user.

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

Once you create a Form Step you will need to create the Steps that will be presented in the form.

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > View Form Step > Create Form Step

The following are supported step types within a form:

• Boolean
• Continuous Scale
• Date/Time
• Email
• Image Choice
• Integer Scale
• Location
• Numeric
• Section (Form Only)
• Text
• Text Choice
• Text Scale
• Time Interval
• Time of Day
• Value Picker

App Example of Form Step

TIP: Use a Section Step to logically group sections of a form together

Section (Form Only)

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Form Step with Section Steps – See section name "User Registration Information"

Health Data Permission

A Health Data Permission step allows you to collect data from any device that writes to the Health App on the iPhone or the Google Fit Cloud on Android (Beta Release).

How it works

1. The researcher portal admin must configure the Health Data Permission step to be part of a new task or include it as part of an existing task.
2. When the participant completes the step in the app, it is no longer asked again unless you delete the app or you get a new phone and reinstall the app on the new device.
3. After permission is granted, the app will check for data 10 seconds after authentication or 10 seconds after the public user is established in a public study, then every minute the app will check if there is data not previously uploaded and starts a process to upload anything new. If the app goes into background mode or if the phone goes into sleep mode, the app will continue to upload. If the app is killed or the phone dies, the background upload will stop and pick up where it left off when the app is opened again.

Best practice scenario: Create new Task - Create a task walking the user through granting the Health Data Permission with an Instruction Step, Health Data Permission Step, and a Completion Step. Assign the Task to every private group and set it to "Always Available." The reason being is that Health Data Permissions are granted per device. If a user were to get a new device, the Health Data Permission must be granted again for the new device. If you do not have this task set to always available then the user will not have an opportunity to re-enable the permissions through the App, the user must do it manually through the settings on the phone.

Best practice scenario: Include in existing Task - Include the step in an "Always Available" existing task. If the user has already granted access then the step is skipped when the user completes the task. So it becomes transparent to the user. If a user were to get a new device, the Health Data Permission must be granted again for the new device. The user will be asked again to enable permissions when they complete the task.

NOTE: The data that is captured by this step is dependent on what the user grants when the user completes the step. See below for an example:

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

}

}

HealthKit Category and Subcategory Table

Google Fit Category and Subcategory Table (Beta)

Image Capture

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of an Image Capture Step

Image Choice

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

** A user can add 1…N Image Choices. Recommend maximum of 6 images for image choices. The number of choices cannot be less than 1.

App Example of an Image Choice Step

Integer Scale

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

Validation

The parameters min, max and step size determine the amount of segments the integer scale will have.

1. There's currently a limitation from Apple's ResearchKit where that amount of segments can't be less than 1 or greater than 13. The resulting amount of segments MUST be an integer result; it cannot be a fraction. See below

In other words:

(max - min) / steps = amount of segments

Rule:

1 <= amount of segments <= 13

1. Maximum Value MUST be larger than the Minimum Value
2. Step Value cannot be less than 1

App Example of Integer Scale Step

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}

Instruction

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Instruction Step

Location

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of a Location Step

Location Air Quality Data

Once a user completes a location step with air quality data gathering enabled, the Axon backend will fetch the air quality data for that time and place and store it in the step response. The service used for getting air data quality is aqicn.org, for further reference on data provided you should check the link provided.

Air Quality Data Information

The following table summarizes the air quality variables as retrieved from aqicn.org.

All the air quality data stored in the step responses will be included in axon study exports.

Numeric

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of a Numeric Step

Text

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of a Text Step

Text Choice

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

** A user can add 1…N Text Choices. The number of choices cannot be less than 1.

App Example of a Text Choice Step

Text Scale

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

** A user can add 1…N Text Scale Choices. Be aware that there is limited real estate on a mobile screen.

App Example of Text Scale Step

Time Interval

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Time Interval Step

Time of Day

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

App Example of Time of Day Step

Value Picker

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

** A user can add 1…N Value Choices. The number of choices cannot be less than 1.

App Example of Value Picker Step

Web View Step

The Web View step allows a user to implement any custom step using HTML. Many use cases require a unique look and feel for the way a task should be presented to users. These uses cases are common when implementing Validated Instruments or where extreme custom styling is necessary. Now you can add a series of Web View steps to a task to meet the needs of just about any validated instrument or custom styling that is needed for a study task configuration. NOTE: This step requires working knowledge of HTML and some Javascript knowledge.

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

Implementation Instructions

Required

Every page must have a function called medableResult. When invoked by the application, that function must return the value selected by the user; the type of that value must conform to the value expected for the step, according to the following table.

If a step is optional, the return value may be null. The page may check if the step is optional or not checking the value of the StepConfiguration.optional variable.

Optional

• displayNextButton: This variable controls if the application displays the standard "Next" button. If you set it to false, the standard button will be hidden. Default value: true.
• displayBackButton: This variable controls if the application displays the standard "Back" button. If you set it to false, the standard button will be hidden. Note that the standard button will not be displayed if the step is the first one. Default value: true.
• displaySkipButton: This variable controls if the application displays the standard "Skip" button. If you set it to false, the standard button will be hidden. Note that this should be shown only if the step is optional. Default value: true.

These variables will be read on initialization, and the screen will be configured accordingly.

If you choose to display your own buttons for back, next or skip, you'll need the to inform the application, using the medableGoBackward, medableGoForward and medableSkip.

Assets

If you want to use images, external stylesheets or other resources, add them as assets and refer to them in your HTML. Assume that all files are in the same directory as the page.

Example

This example uses the standard back button, and custom next button. It is assumed that the step type is "text". It also shows an image that was uploaded as background.png

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <script>
            // Hide the default "next" button.
            displayNextButton = false; 

            // This function will be invoked by the application. Return the value provided by the user.
            function medableResult() {
                return document.getElementById("first").value + " " + document.getElementById("last").value;
            }
        </script>
    </head>
    <body background="background.png" style="background-size: cover;">
        First name: <input type="text" id="first"><br/>
        Last name: <input type="text" id="last"><br/>
        <input type="button" value="Next" onclick="medableGoForward();" style="float: right">
    </body>
</html>

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}

Reorder Steps

Axon supports the ability to reorder steps and form steps. The Axon App displays the steps in the order they are presented in the Web tool in a linear fashion. When branching exists, the steps continue from the destination step in a linear fashion. When developing a Study, a researcher may want to reorder the steps for display. You simply drag and drop each step into the position desired in the list that displays and the order number will update automatically. Here is how a user would do that. Let's Begin!

Reorder Task Steps

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > Scroll down to steps related list and click "Reorder"

Drag and Drop the steps into the desired order

Reorder Form Steps

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > View Form Step > Scroll down to form steps related list and click "Reorder"

Drag and Drop the steps into the desired order

Clone a Step

Axon supports the ability to clone a step. The most common use of this is to clone a step configuration for questions that may be different but have the same scale such as a 1-10 scale or a text scale (ie. Strong Disagree >> Neutral >> Strong Agree). A user can clone all step types.

Limitations

1. When cloning Form Steps, the sub steps are not cloned
2. When cloning steps with images (Instruction, Image Choice, Image Capture), the resulting clone does not have the images. You must upload the images to the step manually.

Here is how you can clone a step. Let's Begin!

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > View Step > Click "Clone"

Note that after you clone you see that the Name of the new step has the work "Clone" in it.