Design and implementation of a remotely configurable and manageable well-being study

Abstract

Surveys are essential tools for obtaining an understanding of factors impacting a person’s physical and mental well-being. Recently, surveys using face-to-face interactions have been replaced with smartphone surveys, with the added benefit of using a phone’s sensor and usage data (e.g., locations, apps used, communication patterns, etc.) to collect valuable contextual information. These data collections, especially if longitudinal, often require a certain degree of flexibility and adaptability, e.g., survey questions may change over time or depend on location, demographics, and previous responses. Data collections may also be reconfigured to account for changes in the study goals or to test different intervention techniques. Finally, participant compliance should be monitored and may also lead to modifications in the data collection approach. This paper introduces a data collection tool and study design that not only collects surveys and phone sensor data, but also addresses the need for remote customization, reconfiguration, and management.