VAS scale: answering 0 requires moving slider away and back

Hi,
Recently I ran a pilot within my team where we tested study 1453. Everyone has reported to me that they could not answer 0 on our questions with a VAS scale unless they first moved the slider away from 0 and then back, which they are afraid will be annoying for our future participants.
Is there any way to change this (for example, in the preview of the questionnaires I see that the slider first needs to be activated by tapping anywhere on the scale- this seems a more intuitive option to me)
Thank you in advance
Best
Elodie

Hi @e.m.s.dinkelberg

To the best of my knowledge, in all of our current design, the VAS question does not show a slider until the user taps on it.

Can you tell me on which platform, Android, iOS, or web, did you notice that by default the slider was shown with value 0?

Thanks

Hello,

My apologies for the late reply.
One of my participants (ID 41438) has reported the problem of not being able to select 0. She uses a samsung smartphone. Hope you can help me figure out how to solve this

Best
Elodie

Hello,

I was wondering whether you have had the chance to check on what might’ve gone wrong with the VAS scale for my participant.

Best
Elodie

Hi @e.m.s.dinkelberg

This is very unlikely. As I mentioned above, 0 is the same as all other values in VAS questions. By default the slider is not shown, and the user sees only a line. The user must tap somewhere on the line for the slider to appear. Then they can move it to any number they prefer.

For the problem you explained, can you replicate this on your own device?

Thanks,
Mohammad

Dear Mohammad,

Thank you for your reply!
I had my colleague replicate the problem, because on my phone this problem does not arise. She told me that after selecting 0 on the scale, she had to first select another number and then move the slider back to 0 again to be able to continue to the next question. See the picture attached (you can see here that she can not click “Volgende”/Continue even though she has selected her answer)
Her participant ID is 40598 in study 1986

Hopefully you can help us find a solution

Best
Elodie

Hi @e.m.s.dinkelberg

As I mentioned above, the way VAS questions work in Ethica is that initially the thumb is not shown and only the bar is shown. When the user taps on the bar, the thumb appears and registers a value. As the user changes the position of the thumb on the bar, the new selection is recorded.

The problem you are mentioning here might be happening when the user taps on the bar initially, and selects 0, so the thumb appears on the very far-left-side of the bar. If then the participant tries to process to the next question without moving the thumb anymore, she/he will notice the next is disabled.

This is just a theory of what might be happening, and I’m not sure if this is the case. But I will ask a colleague to look into this in case that is the reason.

Thanks

Dear Mohammad,

I think that is what is happening!
Yes we would appreciate if your colleague could take a look at the problem. When can we expect a reply/solution?

thank you in advance

Best
Elodie

Dear Mohammad,

For your information @m.hashemian, from now on the correspondence about this issue will be through me because Elodie Dinkelberg is leaving the project for which we made the Ethica study and I am taking over her role as RA!

Best
Carmen