Hello Avicenna Community,
We’re back, and we’re excited to share a wide range of improvements with you this month.
For example, besides the usual improvements and new features on the product, we introduced a way to learn Avicenna with AI. You don’t want to miss that. Believe me.
Or, as you May have noticed, we moved our Blog into our Forum, introduced a Product Ideas category, and more. As a result, we’re also thinking about dropping our Monthly Release Notes (like this article) in favor of the Weekly ones. So, this could be the last blog post of its kind. Let’s take a moment to reflect.
Anyway, as always, these are not the only developments we’ve been working on. Check the “What’s Next?” section at the bottom of this page. I can’t wait for Audit Trail v2 and Carry Forward Choices.
Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve achieved in May (or M:
New Features
New App Usage Data Source
We introduced a new version of the App Usage data source, replacing the legacy version. This new feature provides more precise timing data by capturing exact timestamps of when apps enter and exit the foreground, offering a significant enhancement over the previous aggregate usage statistics. You can read more about it on our Learn website.
Reset Participation
We now let test participants reset their participation, deleting all their data and updating their period. Researchers can also reset non-anonymous participants. This makes the testing phase of a study much easier. For full details, visit our Learn site.
Improvements
Learn Avicenna with AI
To enhance your access to Avicenna Research documentation, we’ve compiled the entire content into a markdown file. You can use this file with AI tools like Google AI Studio for personalized, context-aware answers to your questions, offering a more interactive and faster learning experience. For detailed instructions, check this article.
Enhanced Debugging for Missing Image Responses
Since the exact cause of missing image survey responses submitted by the participant iOS app isn’t clear, we added more debugging logs to help diagnose and resolve upload failures.
Forum, Blog, and Product Ideas
We improved our forum. Our blog is now moved there as a new category. We introduced a “Product Ideas” category for sharing and voting on ideas and feature suggestions. We’re also recognizing “Top Contributors” quarterly. And finally, we implemented some visual and general enhancements. See the forum’s homepage.
Activity Selector Interface
We enhanced the activity selection process in the activity editors by replacing the top drawer with a simple dropdown. This change makes it easier and more intuitive to access, improving the overall user experience. Expect more small improvements like this across different parts of the system in the future.
Bug Fixes
Stroop Activity Update Error
We fixed an issue in the Stroop activity editor where researchers encountered a “Something went wrong” error upon trying to save their changes.
Loading Progress Reward and My Progress
We fixed an issue affecting the Progress Reward and My Progress activities on the participant Android app, which resulted in a “Something went wrong” error when attempting to load the activity.
Criteria Evaluation for Geofencing Triggering Logic
We resolved an issue where criteria evaluation was skipped for sessions generated by Geofencing triggering logics. This resulted in sessions being prompted regardless of the criteria conditions.
Editing Responses to Eligibility and Dropout Surveys
We disabled the “Edit Responses” button for Eligibility and Dropout sessions under the Activity Sessions page to align with our intended design for these survey types.
Geofencing Minimum Gap
We fixed an issue on our web server where the Minimum Gap setting in the Geofencing triggering logic was not respected.
Study Join Form
We resolved an issue on the participant web app where providing the study ID in the URL (for example, when trying to join a study from the study’s registration URL) caused the app to overload and fall into an infinite loading.
Reflecting on the Impact
Your experience with Avicenna is crucial to our growth. Each update aims to streamline your research, focusing on usability and efficiency. We strive to support your research effectively.
We Value Your Feedback - And Your Stories
Have the updates improved your research? We encourage sharing your experiences on our Community Forum or via email. Your feedback helps shape our future updates and motivates the Avicenna community.
What’s Next?
We remain dedicated to improving Avicenna. New features and improvements are in the pipeline, aiming to further enhance your research workflow. To name a few, we’re working on:
- Carry Forward Choices: Enhance your survey experience by automatically using chosen/unchosen responses from previous single-answer or multi-answer questions or answers from a looped question to customize and tailor subsequent questions.
- Apple’s HealthKit: Leverage the HealthKit platform to incorporate diverse health data from iOS devices, making your research even more comprehensive.
- Audit Trail v2: This will offer more logs and more details for each log with a better-structured format, enhancing transparency and traceability.
- And more: Stay tuned for additional features and improvements as we continue our mission to optimize your research experience.
Avicenna is getting even better, and we’re excited to reveal all the improvements to you.
Let’s keep pushing the boundaries of research together.