TypeTester : A Case Study of Behavioral Data Collection Using a Smartphone Platform

Interest in leveraging smartphone technology for scientific data collection has increased significantly in recent years. Mobile platforms have now been employed to investigate a variety of physiological and behavioral phenomena. Here we add to this rapidly growing body of work, using a specially designed mobile application to collect data on text legibility using a paradigm that mirrors established laboratory methods. Lexical decision data (an established proxy for text legibility) were collected from a smartphone platform over the course of several months, ultimately resulting in a sample of trials equivalent to a moderately sized lab experiment. Two typefaces (Frutiger and Eurostile) were tested in both positive and negative polarities. Results suggest that the participant sample was highly motivated and willing to participate in periodic task probes during an engagement period of 1-2 weeks. Consistent with previous work, positive polarity text was read more easily than negative polarity, and response accuracy rose with display duration. However, no significant effects were observed for typeface (i.e., comparing Eurostile to Frutiger) under the testing conditions. Although the application successfully collected activity state and illumination for a majority of trials, sampling rates were insufficient to make comparisons along these dimensions. There was also some concern that the application framework may not present stimuli with reliable timing. Given the relatively small sample size of this initial investigation and the uncontrolled experiment setting, the results suggest that there is substantive potential for this approach as a viable platform for experimental data collection. The trade-offs inherent in a mobile data collection are substantial, and are discussed in detail for this project.