FIT vs IDS Log M1

This is the FIT-Basic version, free of charge and free of advertisements. You will find a pro version called FIT-System in the App Store. The basic version provides all functionality but restricts the number of event categories to 12. You will experience this as sufficient for a versatile range of use cases. And may as appetizer for the unrestricted pro version. The author of the FIT-App is a scientist in Ergonomics and Human Factors Engineering. Contacting him will help you to understand and use the potentials of the FIT technique and to innovate and improve your field study: juergen.held@hfg-gmuend.de In analysis of human or animal behavior you often have to record diverse activities. For example in field studies of Human Factors, Ergonomics, Psychology or in Biology you have to observe activities like tasks, interactions, states, postures, positions, locations, motions or any other observational events. For documentation of your observations you need to record or store them with a time stamp. Your objective is a list or table of the observed events with their related time stamp of occurrence or observation. Therefor you may use traditional time study Apps of key-stroke or pre-defined button recording. But very probably you will experience a set of problems: - You can not design your own user interface of recording. - Instead you have to use a restricted predefined set of buttons or icons. - You can not adapt the user interface to the context and your mental representations. - You have to declare and fix the meaning of your buttons before recording starts. - Memorization or learning of the fix set of buttons limits your event categories. - You can not easily change or adapt your interface during recording. The FIT (Flexible Interface Technique) App is different because: (1) It allows you to design a recording interface graphically or pictorially. In using or designing graphic symbols, text or simply by using photographs of the observation setting you can reach a better performance in recording in terms of faster reaction time, less erroneous input and the management of a much more higher amount of event categories. (2) Using the FIT-App you not declare the meaning of your interface in advance. There is no such thing like first defining everything of your study and then realize during pilot observations to change and redefine it. Instead you can start event recording even with a blank screen as your interface. The signature or meaning of your input in the FIT-App is done afterwards. It is a kind of reverse notation where you can focus on the observational character of the data and not have to narrow your capacities because of enforced occupation with predefined operators of the App. In a field study of human or animal behavior you will often be confronted with the need of a relatively fine grain of analysis. Thus managing a relatively high number of activities and states or locations is often the use case. To solve this with traditional event recording Apps is problematic because of the given interface you have to accept. The result of the FIT-App is a table of event data, i.e. the name or signature of the event and the time stamp in a table form. It can export to spreadsheet software as Numbers or Excel, or as a comma separated file (CSV) for use in statistical packages as R or SPSS. Your work with the FIT-App is supported by a iBook tutorial free of charge (see support link on this page). Additionally it provides you with recording examples and literature links. The FIT-App is just a tool and free of in-App registrations or advertisements. Using the FIT-App you will stay "in touch" with the history of Apple Inc. as the FIT software derives from a first App written in the nineties for the touch screen of the "Apple Newton Message Pad" computer.

The app lets you store your daily notes on whatever you want to take note of in a database of nine fields which you can label as you wish. If you was wanting to have a simple app doing such and didn't find, je veux vous presenter the first essai of IDS Log. The restriction to nine fields is due to keep it simple and to let you have your focus on categories that matter to you. (In a future version there will maybe the possibility to create multiple databases that could cover different categories.) Speaking of categories: the Input View presents just nine empty fields labeled with your custom category labels (or the default: these are also fine - but I recommend you to decide yourself on which subjects to your life you want to take notes.) Into these fields you will input your observations, stories, dreams..., notes about weather, plants, politics..., what you work and read or even what you ate. You're free. In the Log View you'll be presented your notes, the timestamp of when you took the note is added automatically (when saving your Log input in the Input View.) A Search View gives you an opportunity to query your notes, using regular expressions. You are still not able to edit your notes; I dont know if this is necessary. So it's a passive way of writing and keeping and viewing what you held worth remembering. Simple is that. And fine or not: the Log entries are synced over your devices, if not switch off iCloud sync. (The database still remains very small unless you decide to copypaste your whole digital library into it...) #### features - export entries database to a custom format (.csv, sqlite) #### notes If you want to complain about what you get with this, please keep in mind, that in the moment the app is free (which may change some day) and that I mainly created this for my own purpose and it wks fine I say. You are very welcome to give constructive critique on what features you are missing or what you would want to have realised any other ideal way. Bitte beschweren Sie sich nicht über eine fehlende deutsche Benutzeroberfläche; die Bedienung ist weitgehend intuitiv und enthält ohnehin nur sehr wenige (englischsprachige) Bedienelemente, deren Übersetzung heutzutage nicht als notwendig erachtet wurde. Just keep learning... It's possible there's hidden a donate button for support further development and cover expenses if I may. But there's surely no advertisement. Be happy...