_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 experimentdeploy
- an object with information about the deploy methods of your experimentprogress_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": "YOUREMAIL@wherelifeisgreat.you",
"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"
Sample index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<title>browser-based experiments</title>
<!-- fonts from Google fonts -->
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Noto+Sans:400,700|Noto+Serif:400,700|Playfair+Display:700" rel="stylesheet">
<!-- css -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="node_modules/babe-project/babe-styles.css">
<!-- js dependencies -->
<script src="node_modules/mustache/mustache.min.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/jquery/dist/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/csv-js/csv.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.5/lodash.js"></script>
<!-- load the trials -->
<script type="module" src="index.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<-- ask the participants to enable JavaScript in their browser -->
<noscript>This task requires JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript in your browser and reload the page. For more information on how to do that, please refer to
<a href='https://enable-javascript.com' target='_blank'>enable-javascript.com</a>
</noscript>
<!-- views are inserted in here -->
<main id='main'>
Loading...
</main>
</body>
</html>
_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:
-
other views:
intro
- introduction viewinstructions
- instructions viewbegin
- begin experiment view; can be used between the practice and the main viewpostTest
- post-experiment questionnairethanks
- the last view that handles the submission of the results of creates a table with the results in 'Debug Mode'
Each _babe view function takes an object as a parameter with the following properties:
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": "YOUREMAIL@wherelifeisgreat.you",
"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 appearsCT: 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 appserverAppURL
- if you use the _babe server app, specify its URL heredeployMethod
- use one of 'debug', 'localServer', 'MTurk', 'MTurkSandbox', 'Prolific', 'directLink'contact_email
- who to contact in case of troubleprolificURL
- 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 experimentchunks
- 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
}
});
});