Scheduling the trigger
Each participant in the experimental condition would need to be reminded twice per day. To reduce the chance of unintentional bias caused by human error, I have decided not to send the reminder manually out to each participant. Instead, I have looked into ways of automating the reminders.
Analysis iOS SMS scheduler apps
While investigating ways to automate the sending of the reminder triggers I came across quite a few apps in the Apple app store.
The most promising looked to be Delayd: Schedule SMS to send automatically
After downloading and trialling a few I realised that none were fit for purpose.
The maximum functionality they allowed was to open the text messaging screen at the time I wanted to send the message. It would not automatically send the message for me, which is what I was looking for. Further investigation led me to learn that Apple does not let third party apps automatically send out SMS messages.
There appears however to be a multitude of apps for Android that offer this feature, however without an Android device, I had to look for an alternative method.
Analysis – web apps
www.firetext.co.uk
| Company | Features | |
| Text Marketer
|
Text Marketer |
|
| Firetext
|
Firetext |
|
| MessageBird
|
MessageBird |
|
| SMS broadcast
|
|
Experiments with MessageBird – the users view
Below are some examples where I tested sending messages with MessageBird. I particularly liked being able to create a custom “sender” field.
Experiments with MessageBird – The admin interface
Trigger messaging
I wanted to use short, instructional and personalised messages that wouldn’t require much attention from the user.
Initial message concepts – information only
[FirstName], time to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]
[FirstName], its [Time]. Time to take your medicine
[FirstName], don’t forget to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]
[FirstName], it’s time to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]
Initial message concepts – response required
[FirstName], it’s time to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]. Reply Y to confirm you’ve taken it.
[FirstName], it’s time to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]. Reply Y to confirm you’ve taken it
Follow up message concepts
[FirstName], did you take your [MedicineName+Dosage]? Reply Y to confirm
Motivational message concepts
[FirstName], it’s time to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]. You have 5 days left of your prescription.
[FirstName], it’s time to take your [MedicineName+Dosage]. You are 2 days into your prescription and have 5 days left to go.
Last push, almost there
[FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You have one more pill to take this evening in order to complete your prescription
[FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. This pill completes your prescription.
However, thinking about the way SMS messages are received and sent it may not be necessary to repeat the receivers name with each message, twice a day for seven days.
The toss up is between;
- whether the participants find it useful knowing that the message is definitely for them
- repeating their name in each message is a waste of screen space and effort for the user in reading the message each time its received
It would be interesting to look at the participants opinion on this in the debrief/survey/interview. In fact, another experiment could be run on the messaging itself to design the most useful and helpful one.
Final trigger/reminder messages
| # | Message |
|---|---|
| 1 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 1 day into your prescription and have 6 days left to go. |
| 2 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 1 day into your prescription and have 6 days left to go. |
| 3 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 2 days into your prescription and have 5 days left to go. |
| 4 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 2 days into your prescription and have 5 days left to go. |
| 5 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 3 days into your prescription and have 4 days left to go. |
| 6 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 3 days into your prescription and have 4 days left to go. |
| 7 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 4 days into your prescription and have 3 days left to go. |
| 8 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 4 days into your prescription and have 3 days left to go. |
| 9 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 5 days into your prescription and have 2 days left to go. |
| 10 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 5 days into your prescription and have 2 days left to go. |
| 11 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 6 days into your prescription and have 1 day left to go. |
| 12 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You are 6 days into your prescription and have 1 day left to go. |
| 13 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. You have one more pill to take this evening in order to complete your prescription. |
| 14 | [FIRST_NAME], it’s time to take 1 x Tic-Tac pill. This pill completes your prescription. |
| 15 | [FIRST_NAME], thank you for participating in the study. I will be in contact to arrange an interview about your experience during the study. This interview shouldn’t take more than one hour. Anna-Kay |