babe-project

_babe project

basic architecture for browser-based experiments

Installation

Install with npm (recommended)

You need npm installed on your machine. Here is more information on how to install npm

If you have npm installed, run the following command from your experiment's directory

npm install babe-project --save

Download the package

Alternatively you can get the package by cloning the repo in your experiment's directory (?)

Usage

_babe Initialisation

To initialise the experiment import the babe babeInit function in your_js_file.js

// your_js_file.js

import { babeInit } from './link_to_your_libraries/babe-project/babe-init.js';

...
...
...

babeInit takes an object as a parameter with the following properties:

• views_seq - a list of view objects in the sequence you want the to appear in your experiment
• deploy - an object with information about the deploy methods of your experiment
• progress_bar - an object with information about the progress bars in the views of your experiment

Sample babeInit call:

import { babeInit } from './link_to_your_libraries/babe-project/babe-init.js';

$("document").ready(function() {
    babeInit({
        views_seq: [
            intro,
            instructions,
            practice,
            main,
            thanks
        ],
        deploy: {
            "experimentID": "4",
            "serverAppURL": "https://babe-demo.herokuapp.com/api/submit_experiment/",
            "deployMethod": "debug",
            "contact_email": "[e-mail]",
            "prolificURL": "https://app.prolific.ac/submissions/complete?cc=ABCD1234" 
        },
        progress_bar: {
            in: [
                "practice",
                "main"
            ],
            style: "default",
            width: 150
        }
    });
});

Views in _babe

For _babe views to render, you need to have an html tag (preferrably div or main) with id="main"

_babe's ready-made views

_babe provides several ready-made views which you can use by importing them in your_js_file.js.

• trial type views:

  • forcedChoice - binary forced-choice task
  • textboxInput textbox input task
  • sliderRating - slider rating task
  • dropdownMenu - dropdown menu task
  • ratingScale - Likert-scale rating task
  • sentenceSelection - text selection task
  • imageSelection - click-on-a-picture task
  • keyPress- press a button task

• other views:

  • intro (intro)
  • instructions (instructions)
  • post test (postTest)
  • submit results (thanks)

Each _babe view function takes an object as a parameter with the following properties:

• trials - the number of trials this view will appear

  • trial type views also have:

    • trial_type - the name of the trial type that will be in the final data (for example 'main binary choice');
    • data - a list of trials

  • other views also have:

    • title - the title in the view
    • text - the text in the view
    • buttonText - the text on the button that takes the user to the newxt view

Sample use of _babe views:

// your_js_file.js

import { babeInit } from './link_to_your_libraries/babe-project/babe-init.js';
import { intro, instructions, forcedChoice, thanks } from './link_to_your_libraries/babe-project/babe-views.js';

const myIntro = intro({
    title: 'Welcome!',
    text: 'This is an experiment!',
    buttonText: 'Begin the experiment',
    trials: 1
});

const myInstructions = instructions({
    title: 'Instructions',
    text: 'Choose an answer',
    buttonText: 'Next',
    trials: 1
});

const main = forcedChoice({
    trial_type: 'main',
    data: main_trials,
    trials: 4
});

const thankYou = thanks({
    title: 'Thank you for taking part in this experiment!',
    trials: 1
});

$("document").ready(function() {
    babeInit({
        views_seq: [
            myIntro,
            myInstructions,
            main,
            thankYou
        ],
        deploy: {
            "experimentID": "4",
            "serverAppURL": "https://babe-demo.herokuapp.com/api/submit_experiment/",
            "deployMethod": "debug",
            "contact_email": "[e-mail]",
            "prolificURL": "https://app.prolific.ac/submissions/complete?cc=ABCD1234"

        },
        progress_bar: {
            in: [
                "practice",
                "main"
            ],
            style: "default",
            width: 150
        }
    });
});

Creating your own views

You can also create your own views. Here is what you need to know:

The view is an object that has the following properties:

• trials: number - the number of trials this view appears
• CT: 0 - current trial, always starts from 0, ??
• name: string - the name of the view ??
• render: function - a function that renders the view

for the trial type views

• pass CT as a parameter to render()
• add the trial info for this trial and the gathered data to the trial data

Sample custom view:

// your_js_file.js

import { babeInit } from './link_to_your_libraries/babe-project/babe-init.js';

const sayHello = function(info) {
    const sayHello = {
        name: info.name,
        title: info.title,
        text: info.text,
        render() {
            const viewTemplate =
            `<div class='view'>
                {{# title }}
                <h1 class="title">{{ title }}</h1>
                {{/ title }}
                {{# text }}
                <section class="text-container">
                <p class="text">{{ text }}</p>
                </section>
                {{/ text }}
                <button id="hello-back">Hello to you, too!</button>
                <button id="next" class="nodisplay">Bye!</button>
            </div>`;

            $("#main").html(
                Mustache.render(viewTemplate, {
                    title: this.title,
                    text: this.text
                })
            );

            $('#hello-back').on('click', function(e) {
                $('#next').removeClass('nodisplay');
                $('.text').addClass('nodisplay');
                e.target.classList.add('nodisplay');
            });

            $('#next').on('click', function() {
                findNextView();
            })
        },
        CT: 0,
        trials: info.trials
    };

    return sayHello;
};

const mySayHello = sayHello({
    name: 'sayHello',
    title: 'Hello',
    text: 'I am here just to say Hello..',
    trials: 1
});

$("document").ready(function() {
    babeInit({
        ...
        views_seq: [
            ...
            mySayHello,
            ...
        ],
        ...
    });
});

Deploy configuration

The deploy config has the following properties:

• experimentID - the experimentID is needed to recover data from the babe server app. You receive the experimentID when you create the experiment using the babe server app
• serverAppURL - if you use the _babe server app, specify its URL here
• deployMethod - use one of 'debug', 'localServer', 'MTurk', 'MTurkSandbox', 'Prolific', 'directLink'
• contact_email - who to contact in case of trouble
• prolificURL - the prolific completion URL if the deploy method is "Prolific"

Progress Bar

_babe provides the option to include progress bars in the views specified in the progress_bar.in list passed to babeInit.

You can use one of the following 3 styles (include pictues)

• separate - have separate progress bars in each views declared in progress_bar.in
• default - have one progress bar throughout the whole experiment
• chunks - have a separate progress chunk for each view in progress_bar.in

Use progress_bar.width to set the width (in pixels) of the progress bar or chunk

Sample progress bar

$("document").ready(function() {
    babeInit({
        ...
        progress_bar: {
            in: [
                "practice",
                "main"
            ], // only the practice and the main view will have progress bars in this experiment
            style: "chunks", // there will be two chunks - one for the practice and one for the main view
            width: 100 // each one of the two chunks will be 100 pixels long
        }
    });
});