Collect - collapsible training hints ("guidance")

What is the general goal of the feature?
Sometimes survey organizers want to share more information about the meaning or intent of a particular question. Hints can be used for this but they will always be displayed. A new hint form called "guidance" was recently introduced to the ODK XForms spec to represent a longer training narrative that isn't always wanted in the user interface. See https://opendatakit.github.io/xforms-spec/#languages.

What are some example use cases for this feature?

  • During training, provide additional guidance about certain questions that is then hidden for data collection.
  • For long-running forms that don't need to be filled out very frequently, enumerators can optionally view extra details about a question to jog their memory on what they should say to their subjects.

In Collect, I propose adding a setting at the bottom of General settings > form management > form filling labeled Show guidance for questions. Possible options are:

  • No - this is the default. Any guidance text in the form is ignored.
  • Yes - the guidance text is shown below the hint text in blue italics so that it stands out.
  • Yes - collapsed - the guidance text is shown collapsed by default with the option to click to expand (e.g. https://github.com/freecats/TextViewExpandableAnimation).

this would be a good feature, also if a comment feature too can be allow on a questions on a single select or multiple select questions so that the enumerator will have the chance of elaborating more on a question if the respondent is making a very important point on it.

Thanks.
fabla2020@gmail.com

2 Likes

There's a first pass at an implementation at https://github.com/opendatakit/collect/pull/2105, thanks to Joel for that!

Here is what it looks like if the setting is "Yes - always shown":
02%20PM

Here is what it looks like if the setting is "Yes - collapsed":
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And after tapping on the (i):
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It would be great to get some UI feedback. In particular:

  • The guidance hint text is smaller than the hint text. Do you like that? Alternately it could be the same size.
  • Do you like the (i) icon?
3 Likes

Guidance hints are supported as of Collect v1.15.0.

2 Likes

hi @LN can i get excel sample form for the "guidance"

1 Like

@Fabla XLSForm support is not yet available (see https://github.com/XLSForm/pyxform/pull/206). It will hopefully be out in the next two weeks or so. In the mean time you could add it to form XML. See ODK Collect v1.15 Beta - #32 by LN for more.

9 posts were split to a new topic: Guidance hints in Enketo

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Guidance hints in Enketo

Guidance hints have been supported in XLSForm since July 2018 and are documented at http://xlsform.org/en/#guidance-hints.