YourPsyche.org

In an effort to improve the YourPsyche.org experience, we've added a discussion forum to the website. I have to be honest and say that I have mixed feelings about this move, for a couple of different reasons. First, I'm concerned that people who read the forum posts before participating might respond differently than people who go into the studies knowing less about them. Secondly, I'm honestly not looking forward to the work involved in keeping spam out of the forums. But I've thought if over carefully, and I think the forums can be a way for visitors to this website to really become part of the research process, and to really learn a lot from it.

The forum page is up and running here, so head over and start up a discussion!

The YourPsyche.org team is proud to announce the availability of a new study focusing on well-being. This announcement comes hot on the heals of our recent launch of the political attitudes study, and we're very pleased to be able to make these studies available.

The well-being study is shorter and less complicated than the other studies we've done so far, so if you've been waiting for a shorter study this is the one for you! During our testing phase most people completed the study in under 15 minutes. We think this study addresses some interesting questions and we hope you find it interesting and worthwhile.

After weeks of hard work, the YourPsyche.org team is proud to announce the
launch of a new research project on political attitudes. We've worked hard
on this one, and we hope you enjoy it! The results page has also been
considerably improved compared to previous studies.

We're excited to bring you this latest study, and we hope you find it
interesting and useful. If not, please let us know how we can make it
better! You can send comments or questions using the contact form

Recently I noticed that many people participate in a study and only view the default feedback. I've put a lot of work into the feedback system, and I want to help people use it to it's full potential. The results feedback system used on YourPsyche.org is very powerful, and a bit complicated. So, I created a video tutorial to help you understand what the results mean and how to interpret the graphics generated by the website. Enjoy!

Results Tutorial

I sent out emails to a few friends, and posted an update about the website on my FaceBook account, and it seems to be working. So far we have 21 registered users. All 21 have at least started to complete a study, with 18 completing at least one, and 12 completing both studies. So we're making some headway.

Unfortunately, our bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave without looking at anything but the home page) is very high: around 46%. That's a real problem, and one that needs to be addressed. The percentage of visitors who ended up registering is even worse of course -- only around 20% of visitors registered. That's not too bad, except that many of the visitors know me personally, so I would have expected a higher number.

Clearly some work needs to be done on the front page to present a more compelling argument for registering. I'm all ears, so if you have ideas for improving the front page please let me know!

After spending nearly the entire Summer of 2009 working on it, YourPsyche.org is now ready for general use! Working features include:

• Registration system integrated into database, allowing each participant to see individualized feedback.
• PXLab/LimeSurvey integration allows for priming studies and reaction time tasks to be embedded in surveys.
• Custom report generation engine allows participant to view results by demographic categories.
• Live feedback mechanism always returns up-to-the-second data.
• Registration system provides result persistence so participants can see how results change over time.

I'm very excited about the project, and I hope people find it useful. The next step is to promote and advertise the website. Please contact me if you'd like to help promote the website!