JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Smartphone-based data collection and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) offer advantages over traditional retrospective questionnaires but require flexible technical solutions that many research groups cannot develop in-house. Existing EMA tools differ in platform coverage, notification options, and support for innovative mobile interaction formats, limiting their suitability for diverse study designs.

Objective:

This study aimed to (1) describe the development and core features of SMAAT (Sensor-based Mobile Application for Assessment and Tracking), a smartphone-based research platform for designing and deploying mobile surveys and EMA studies, and (2) report initial usability findings from a cross-sectional study using a novel swiping response format, as well as the protocol of an ongoing longitudinal EMA feasibility study implemented with the platform.

Methods:

SMAAT consists of a web-based dashboard for researchers and companion iOS and Android apps for participants, providing a visual survey builder, multiple notification schedules (including fixed, random, interval, event-based, and geofenced prompts), gamification mechanics, and tools to monitor participant compliance. To evaluate the platform in use, we conducted a between-subjects cross-sectional study in which 97 university students and 132 online panel participants completed blocks of binary questions on smartphones using either a swiping or tapping response format, followed by usability and user-experience questionnaires. We additionally specify the design of an ongoing 8-week EMA feasibility study (80 participants, two prompts per day combining random daytime and fixed evening notifications, plus geofenced prompts for a subsample) that uses SMAAT’s advanced scheduling features.

Results:

In the cross-sectional study, SMAAT supported successful study setup, enrollment, and survey completion across both iOS and Android devices without major technical problems, and participants in both samples completed the full protocol in a single session. Performance on the binary tasks was generally high, with swiping and tapping showing broadly comparable response-time and accuracy patterns and no clear disadvantages for swiping or consistent effects of response orientation. Usability and pragmatic user-experience ratings were high across conditions, with no meaningful differences between swiping and tapping, while Prolific participants reported higher usability and pragmatic quality than students. Hedonic ratings descriptively favored swiping, although this difference did not reach conventional statistical significance. The EMA feasibility study remains ongoing, so no longitudinal feasibility outcomes are yet available.

Conclusions:

SMAAT is a flexible smartphone-based research platform for configuring and deploying mobile surveys and EMA studies with diverse item types and notification logics. Initial findings show that SMAAT can support reliable cross-sectional data collection across heterogeneous devices and samples, and that a swipe-based response format can be implemented without compromising task performance, usability, or pragmatic user experience relative to tapping. The detailed EMA protocol further illustrates the platform’s potential for future longitudinal and mixed-trigger mobile research, although feasibility outcomes from that study are not yet available.