Would this affect the insights as well?

Yes

Maybe start a new time slot when something changes, like taking medication or or doing a factor like taking a walk/fresh air or eating something. That might make it easier to see if your diet, factors or medication has any influence on your symptoms. I like being able to turn the time periods on and off so maybe that would be a good way for this as wel. ‘start new time period for…’ so if i have a headache and go for a walk at 3 then a new time period starts till 6 (the normal time period ending)

And if then a 4 i take medication i could also start a new time slot again. Gonna take a nap at 5, new time slot.

I’d love to be able to choose my own time periods. I rarely log anything in the before 6am slot so it’s pretty wasted for me. It would also be cool to choose how many time periods I want, rather than only the four current slots.

I agree with Milla - instead of time slots, it would be better to just track changes. Then we can enter a specific time, just like meds.

Does this mean to choose the specific time instead of slots? That would be awesome!

I think it would be better to pick the actual length of time in some easy way (maybe dragging across time periods like a calendar view), this way you could see for example the amount of time you had a symptom, which could lead to some interesting insights moving forward

Otherwise if you’re just picking a timestamp for symptoms, you don’t really know how long it lasted

While picking 2 separate timestamps to indicate length of time seems like it might take too long

I agree with you as well. About choosing your own slots. I usually go to sleep at the same time and get up at the same time. So i would input any symptoms under ‘sleep’ and do not need the ‘pre’ slot. And for myself i would (if i could) make my time slots 8-13, 13-16, 16-19 and 19-23. As far as I notice my mornings are stable, so not that interesting to be more specific about. One of the things I want to track more specifically is my migraines. which usually start with an all day headache, and gets worse around 16. I would like to be able to let my time slot start then with the flick of a switch, because my functioning is not optimal then :P I think that would make it more clear to see, what happens before and what helps during. If my migraine starts to get worse around 14 and choose to go for a walk and it turns out that helps, it’s important to see if the walk was before and made it worse or after/during and made it better.

By ‘gets worse’ i mean i actually have to lie down 😅 before that i am usually already unable to focus or listen, but i can still walk around 😂 and i don’t really know what i do when walking around 😅

James:

My symptoms are chronic, and vary only in severity. I have several treatments that usually have a very quick onset of action, meaning that it is crucial for me to know if the severity changed before or after I used one of them. I might take a an aspirin or a short walk like Milla describes, and it’s crucial to know if the symptoms improved before or after that 10 minute period. This becomes extra important because I will usually only use certain meds or treatments if and when symptoms are really bad. So an imprecision in the time that I log a symptom will very easy lead to the causality being reversed - it will seem like the treatment causes the symptoms. This is not just a made up concern: Bearable currently tells me that my most effective treatment is associated with a marked WORSENING in my symptoms. This happens because I use the treatment only when symptoms are bad, and because there is no way to tell Bearable which came first: the symptoms or the treatment.

For my use case this problem cannot be resolved without abandoning fixed time periods, even if reduced to 15 minutes. Minute precision is required.

To address your comments specifically:

I think it would be better to pick the actual length of time in some easy way (maybe dragging across time periods like a calendar view), this way you could see for example the amount of time you had a symptom, which could lead to some interesting insights moving forward

I’m all for some good way to specify the duration, but for all users who are trying to understand the causes, it will be just as (if not more) important to know when it begins and ends (compared to when treatments were applied).

Otherwise if you’re just picking a timestamp for symptoms, you don’t really know how long it lasted

When I start noticing a symptom, I’d want to log that. At that time, it is impossible to know, both for Bearable and for me, how long it will last. So while your statement is true, no design choice you can make for Bearable will make duration knowable at this point. Therefore, forcing us to enter a duration (which any time period-based design will) doesn’t really make sense. All that’s needed is “I started noticing a symptom right now”.

The most precise way possible to log the symptom at this time is by entering a timestamp. In any case, there will be a need to log when the symptom changes/disappears to know duration.

While picking 2 separate timestamps to indicate length of time seems like it might take too long

Let me give a common counterexample (for my use-case): I get a moderate headache at 10AM. At 4PM I take an aspirin, and at 4:10 the severity changes to mild, which persists throughout the day.

With the current design, I have to enter: <-06: None, 06-12: Moderate, 12-18: Mild (or moderate?), 12->: Mild.

With timestamps, I’d open the app to log moderate severity, without having to specify time period (since it would default to “now”, like meds). Then, when I notice the headache abates, I quickly log that, again without having to specify time since it would default to “now”.

Perhaps some concept of duration can instead be added by having a default duration associated with each symptom? In any case, the way the medication input works is perfect, and it would work just as well for symptoms as it does for meds. And I would argue that the comments here show that most agree with this position.

I do agree with West. Logging start and finish for the symptom or its intensity would work much better, than current time frames. I actually stopped using symptoms section all together and log changes with tags in the mood tracker now. Btw the way mood tracker works would work perfectly as a symptom tracker too.

Well said!

Since i would prefer to use both maybe adding a button ‘timestamp’ between the symptom name and the ‘add note’ button. Maybe.. dont know if that would be easier… with a dropdown ‘menu’ with mild, moderate, severe unbearable. That way you could add a time stamp with only two actions. That way you can easely add the time stamp in the moment and add notes for specifics (later) and also see in a broad sence how it evolves during the day.

But with my idea of being able to go into more specific time periods within the current preset time slots, why would you need to have different time slots?

These are useful just for indicating the more general time of day for the timeline page and even for insights e.g. “am” “pm”, but you couldn’t do that if we just let you customise those.

Thanks for the detailed response.

I guess the main issue here is that most users appear to be making 1 overall entry per day, in which case it’s going to be pretty impossible to accurately remember the exact times they were experiencing symptoms.

I have to cater the app mainly to people who want to make quick entries. But perhaps there is some way I could allow users to go into more detail if they wanted, maybe even 2 separate switches at the top like the switch for the factors section.

1 switch is like the current method, also with the ability to hold down a square to go into a bit more detail (15 minute periods) like my suggestion above. Then another switch to be able to enter specific start and top timestamps. Perhaps with the latter method, there could like you say be some default length of time in case they forget to enter a “stop” timestamp. Or maybe it could even assume you kept having that symptom unless you marked a stop timestamp.

One the big considerations with this is how one switch is affected by what you then decide to enter using another switch. For example, if I selected a timestamp with a mild symptom, this mild entry should then appear e.g. for the “am” square in the other switch’s view. So if I then decide to increase that “am” square manually by tapping, should it then change the timestamp you have just created?

There are a lot of tricky situations to think about.

Whichever way you choose to implement this: I would like to see a way to choose different entry systems for different symptoms.

I don’t want to be super duper detailed for all 35 of my symptoms, that would be way too much. But I would love to pick 3 to be more detailed about (let’s say they correspond to medication, naps, or other such factors) and have the rest be 0-6/6-12/12-6/6-0 as that is easier for me to keep track of.

I’d like the same for factors actually, now I have to fill all of them in detail just because I’d like to track a few of them in detail. It adds more work for us in places we might not need it.

As this app grows and expands I expect a lot more to be added. Having the option to simplify sections based on need, and expand detail in other sections will become crucial to keep it simple for people who want to track quickly, and still offer the possibility to be much more detailed in tracking those things they are willing to spend more time on as they are important for them

Thanks for hearing me out. To start I just want to say that I think my comments, quotes and all, give off a “combatitive arguing” vibe, which isn’t my intention - I’m just trying to help by sharing my ideas and thoughts.

Perhaps with the latter method, there could like you say be some default length of time in case they forget to enter a “stop” timestamp. Or maybe it could even assume you kept having that symptom unless you marked a stop timestamp.

If there’s an option to specify default duration, maybe it could default to “until end of day” if a duration isn’t specified?

most users appear to be making 1 overall entry per day, in which case it’s going to be pretty impossible to accurately remember the exact times they were experiencing symptoms

I think timestamps could still work in this case, as one would just enter an approximate time. I usually do this for meds without any concerns. Admittedly, people might find it annoying having to specify the exact minute for each entry if they want to create many approximate entries for a symptom for the day.

To address this, I agree that there should be some QoL-solution for creating entries with approximate times. However, I think there is still room for improvement on the switch method you describe. In particular, I think that holding down to select a specific 15 min period within another period seems like it will take as much effort as entering an exact time. Moreover, 15 min precision and 1 min precision is similar enough that it shouldn’t cause any issues if the 15 min period option is replaced by an exact time option.

I don’t really have a perfect answer to how I’d change it, but here’s one idea (that also addresses Frankie’s very good points):

Instead of selecting a time-period like the current design, users would select a start-time from a list of options. By default, these could correspond to current time periods: 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00. In addition to these options, a “pick time” button could be shown to allow entering an exact start-time.

If it’s possible to specify default duration for symptoms (as previously discussed), this design could be used in the exact same way as the current time-periods (by setting default duration to 6 hours).

In addition to setting default duration for each symptom, there could also be an option to specify the start-time options that should be displayed. Some example symptom settings could be:

Similar to the current design:

• Default start-time options (00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00)
• 6 hr default duration

High level of detail:

• Start-time options 06:00, 09:00, 12:00, 15:00, 18:00, 21:00, 23:59
• 3 hr default duration

Low level of detail:

• Start-time options 00:00 and 16:00
• “Until end of day” default duration

These last settings would make it easy to log two blocks of time: How you felt until coming home from work, and how you felt for the rest of the day.

this could actually allow for keeping the design almost identical to the current one, with one square for each start time, and each tap changes severity starting at that time, lasting for the default duration for that symptom. And maybe hold down the square to override the default duration?

You are right. Going into more specifics in the current time slots is better. I mostly started about changing the timeslots because someone else started about them. In general and for a general over vieuw these are absolutely fine.

And like i said. For me it is mostly important to know what happens before and after a certain thing. And it is not that i want to track everything in such detail. So for me it would be enough if i can say, i wake up with a mild headache, that is the am timeslot, i do some stuff during the am timeslot, and the i start doing some stuff in the mid timeslot. But if my headache goes to a migraine i want to know what i did before. So eventually i’ll see that if it is cold i and i go for a walk it will probebly and in a migraine. Then is doesn’t really matter to me how long it lasts. And keeping on the current time slots, if the migraine starts at 14.00 then that will be my time stamp and everything i enter after will continue for the rest of the time slot. If i take a nap, or meds which i just enter in the rest of the time slot. Unless at 16.00 my headache is waaaay better, i will timestamp that and immediately know what happened during the headache before and after. If the headache continues untill 20.00 i can start the pm timeslot, still with a head ache and give a timestamp at that time.

You also said about changing things in hindsight. I guess in my mind the timeslots get cut up in sections. And maybe holding it down would let you change or add to the past. So, if halfway the timeslot some thing goes from mild to severe you see the change in coulor. And if you want t change mild to moderate you hold it down like zooming in, to be able to adjust the time slot as two timeslots. And also see the exact time of the time stamp

You could also add a question when wanting to add a timestamp. ‘have you entered everything before now?’ if you awnser yes you can continue with the time stamp. If you awnser no you can add some factors or what ever you have fone borenthe timestamp and then add the time stamp. What ever is entered before you make the timestamp goes into the time slot before then, and everything you enter after you made a time stamp would go into the new slot.

For me this sounds like it could be easy… But i am not always right about those kind of things 😂 and i really don’t know if this would work for people that want to track more in depth.

Could it also be possible to choose whether you want to use time periods or tags per factor instead of for all factors at once? Because some factors work great as tags, like “busy day” under General. But then under Places I’d like to use times to log where I was when. I hope that makes sense.

It would just be really awesome to be able to toggle which mode works best per factor.

I was thinking what other insight i would like in case of time stamps. I would like to see the difference between timestamped days/symptoms and non timestaped. So, if i look at a time stamped symptom for more detail i could see the same info you can see now per symptom but then see the time stamped days compared to the none time stamped days.

I was going to say something for the night owls like me where midnight to six is usually the end of the day rather than the beginning. It seems like many of the above suggestions could be beneficial. I’ve tried using the current set up and pre as my 7-11 and so on, but I see that will throw off the correlation with time-based entries such as medications.

1 thing to consider, is that theres a whole group of people currently holding back, bacause the current design makes it kind of “whats the point” I cant properly track right now using factors and symptoms, so i just kinda put something in it for the sake of having it register that it happened. But most things im not sure how to do now

Id really like a time stamp as well to be able to show the causal relationship to what action i took to remedy the symptom and then monitor results from that

Id need a duration to

You might need to zoom in a little, but what do you think of these designs? https://imgur.com/nQqupR2

One drawback of this is that you can’t select length of time, but it’s at least better than what we have now and more clear too. Maybe selecting time is more important for symptoms than Factors.

Another option is to hold down the time period squares to bring up some pop up and enter durations there, but this seems like it could get annoying.

Would be great to get your thoughts.

I really really like this.

For symptom timestamps, the first tap for setting time, repeated taps for severity, and the text below with a time edit option (I’m assuming) is brilliant.

One drawback of this is that you can’t select length of time

I’m not sure which tab(s) you are referring to here, but for symptom timestamps it looks like we can specify duration by just pressing the + button and set Stress to severity None at some later time?

This looks like it would work just as well for factor timestamps with the same logic: Going by the screenshots, it looks like you have logged “Busy day” (starting) at 09:00, and then you logged that no factors applied at 12:00. I.e., “Busy day” applied from 09:00 to 12:00.

Another option is to hold down the time period squares to bring up some pop up and enter durations there, but this seems like it could get annoying.

Again I may be misunderstanding you, but are you referring to the squares in the “Time periods” tab? For instance, holding down the “pre” square to specify duration? Could you expand on how this would work?

Hey Milla! Totally unrelated to this app, but I used to get migraines about 3-6 times a week, usually starting at the same time of day. Long story short, it was gluten (after tracking my food intake religiously for two months). My migraine reaction is 24-36 hours after ingesting gluten, so it was hard to pinpoint. Now that I’ve been gluten free for almost a decade I’m down to one migraine per menstrual cycle at ovulation. I don’t know how far along in your migraine journey you are, or what all you’ve tried, but I hope to be helpful

So, I haven’t given a huge amount of thought as to implementation… but in terms of functionality I’d love something like many of those above describe. Specifically what would be helpful for me is the ability to see how symptoms change throughout the day after meds are taken and when they start to diminish in effect.

For my specific use case I’m currently trying to figure out ADHD med dosage and times with my Dr and this app had been really helpful for confirming that they are helping and that dose changes have been having an effect (because my memory for moods and how things are going is basically nill so this record is invaluable) but the one thing it doesn’t help me with is seeing when throughout the day any of these symptoms rebound and essentially the period of efficacy partially because the app is really well designed for things whose effects are on scale of day+ but less so on more transient effects…

I understand the difficulty of figuring out how to implement this and expect it’s something that could take some time before implementation because I really appreciate the simplicity of the interface because it means I’m more likely to use it… if there’s too many steps I know I’m going to be less likely to actually use the tool (and I absolutely appreciate being able to just choose all day for some of my factors/symptoms and then finer divisions for others as I feel). but yeah a hold down option for a more specific timestamp for a given entry or option to choose time divisions or anything to allow tracking and assessment on a scale of less than a day would be brilliant. Long term I will say that if this is figured out and even more so if it’s integrated with the feature under consideration of “more specific time periods for insights” where you can not just look at multiple days but down scale to effect within hours/time divisions within the day would be absolutely amazing!

I hope this all kinda makes sense but it boils down to somehow finding a way to see the effect of meds (or maybe factors?) that work more on the scale of hours than days/weeks (because the functionality for that scale on this app that is superb and has been so amazingly helpful for things like my antidepressants etc. And duplicating that ability with shorter time period stuff just would make this perfect!)

Thank you for the tip! I do have a lot of allergies. I am hoping this app will help me see if it is my food, menstrual cycle, air pollution or weather. But i think for me it is a combination thing. I was also migraine free for a few years, but thing weren’t going so well back then so i don’t remember what i was doing diffrent, except i drank more beer, but i don’t want that to be a solution 😂 And sometimes it seems to be a seasonal thing.. so i think i’ll at the least be tracking for a few year 😜

Just looking to edit the pre/am/mid/pm time slots. I like that there are 4 slots to break up the day but I want to change it to pre-9am/9-3/3-7/7-bed

I agree, chosing custom timeslots and any number will be better

I have crazy bedtimes… Non-24-hour free-running circadian rhythm disorder. So my “day” may start and end literally any time. Lately I tend to wake up in the evening and go to bed in the morning after the sun is up. (Though I REALLY hope that changes cuz I love the sun, and for me it’s coming back, heh..).

Just insight into my current experience: With my also variable “day” lengths, I’ve been treating “pre” as both mid-sleep & the time I lay in bed wishing I felt more rested, AM as when I finally get up, and PM whenever I’m a few hours from collapsing into bed (with “mid” being some rough in-between). This at least simplifies things for me such as what “part” of my day things happened. But I’m not sure how the app factors that in compared to other factors with timestamps.

I definitely support some sort of ability to offset when our “day” starts. Because I’m having a REALLY confusing time having to put that I’m taking my night pills in the morning of the next day, my morning pills in the evening, then when looking back trying to figure out which day what pills affected what. 😅 For many, such as night-owls, we might indeed be better served with options for a custom “day starts at (time).”

Extra tricky in my case though, is that all this is subject to change at any time. I’ll go a day without sleeping, then hibernate 13 hours and flip my “schedule” back around again. Or my body will decide that days are 25 hours long and just gradually slide my ability to fall asleep an hour later every day. Or I’ll get a 4 hour nap and have to make do with a long exhausting day, etc.

My condition is pretty rare, I realize, and you fantastic folks at Bearable have a difficult task in trying to make all this work for as many people as possible. I’m not sure I really have any good ideas to add, but I just figured I’d share a possible complication some folks have.

I personally like the ability to segment general spans of time for that reason, especially to ease the burden when I’m playing catch-up (as many of us with tough conditions inevitably do sometimes), but specific time entries have their place too.

I really wish y’all the best with figuring out how to get all the modes to play nice.

I’ve come up with something although it’s a bit complex.

Let me know what you think of this:

https://imgur.com/M66yAo1

The idea would be that you could set this “clock” icon for each symptom which means when you now press on the squares you can go into more detail in a pop up.

I like it! The image is a but hard to see but that would definitely work for me.

I do think that design have some merits:

• It allows for using different input methods per symptom
• It makes the duration more obvious when creating a new entry

However, I also see several drawbacks:

• When exiting the input menu, there is still the problem of showing these detailed inputs on a much smaller surface
• I don’t see a way to log the start time of a symptom, unless you already know when it will end
• It requires more taps vs. prev design, especially if the start and end time are in different period blocks
• Loss of precision compared to exact minute entry

All in all, I liked the previous design much better. The previous design also leave a lot unused screen real estate that can be used to improve it even more. To illustrate this point (and to lobby for my favorite design :D), I drew up some half-baked ideas based on your first design.

As I understand it, you main concern with the previous design was that it was hard to understand how long entered symptoms would last. I think some visual guide could help make this more obvious. Perhaps something like this?

https://i.imgur.com/3iWT2NN.png

Or even more explicit by showing exact duration for each severity:

https://i.imgur.com/r04TZ0W.png

Pardon this random idea I had when making this:

https://i.imgur.com/YO8kRS8.png

Visually packed, but shows how the surplus screen real estate gives a lot of room for further refinements or new functionality:

https://i.imgur.com/TRpBPhD.png

Appreciate the effort.

Fair point that you wouldn’t be able to set a start time alone. But the issue is, what if someone doesn’t then enter another square (which in your design is also servicing as an “end time” for the initial severity). Then do we just assume it lasted for the whole day?

Or do we assume it only lasted for that very minute (which is what we currently do with moods)? This is a key clarification when considering our “Factor Effect” insights.

It’s also pretty weird that if they want to “end that symptom” completely, they would then have to manually add a 2nd “None” square (with 5 taps).

I’ll have to get back to the drawing board!

I also foresee issues with people entering loads of times for your design, as it could be that the coloured bars become extremely small as a result. I don’t think that bar is feasible

Then do we just assume it lasted for the whole day? Or do we assume it only lasted for that very minute?

Out of those two, I think the first assumption makes more sense. But I agree that neither is ideal as-is.

How about letting the user control this on a per-symptom basis? Perhaps instead of my proposed bar, there could be a duration slider, where the max value is “until end of day” or “until start time of the next input”.

If done right, this could also eliminate need for entering a “None” square to end the symptom.

I’m excited to see what you can come up with :)

I didn’t read thoroughly through this all, but just to give you another example on how people use the app: I track my mood and symptoms every two hours, since it all changes a lot. With only four timeslots I feel that a lot of collusion happens, with multiple factors affecting my state differently but me only seeing the median. So if something very good and very bad happens between 12 and 1800, it seem as if everything was normal.

For me it would be really great symptoms and factors simply would have smaller possible slots or timestamps, so that in insights you could choose to see the effect not only for the day/next day but perhaps for the next 1/2/3/..... hours. If someone doesn’t need this, he could disable that (or choose fewer timeslots) as it already works with the option to log once a day.

Many thanks for this already great app and developing it further!

I get the feeling for this it would just be most simple if I just allowed timestamps, not setting start or end time or some clever graphic, but just simply saying e.g. I had mild symptoms at 4pm. Then if someone chooses they could if they want say they had no symptoms at 6pm.

Factors is laid out differently so not sure how I’ll do it for that. But this seems to be the most simple approach for now that would at least allow people to enter more specific time periods.

Another option I have been thinking about is allowing those time period squares to be scrollable so that you could see more. But even if you wanted one per hour that would be 24 squares! This could take ages for someone to fill in if they are tapping quite a few squares to increase severirty.

• I meant not setting end time, just start time.

I think your first idea is good, but I personally believe the second one is even better! 😍 If the user could choose the number of scrollable squares they want, and how they want to name them, that would be useful for both the people that strive for simplicity and the people that need to get into more detail (Me myself am a mix of both, depending on the symptom/factor =P) No idea if this would be tricky to implement or not, but imho it would be a great solution.

Thanks James for all the time and work you put into this! It’s really really appreciated! 🙏

I think I might have found a good solution.

The ability to set either PRE, MID, AM, PM for a breakdown of squares within those periods, then you can set either 1 hour or 30 min chunks. You could then scroll left to see more.

https://imgur.com/0OlfoGX

Let me know what you think.

Looks promising!

Something I do with the medication section is list all of my remedies, including a heating pad, TENS unit, etc. I’ve listed their dosage as minutes (increments vary based on type of remedy). I typically will go tap it to record when I started and then later can go back and add more increments of time to it. It ends up showing me total minutes of the day spent tied to a heating pad or whatever.

Would love to have something like that.

From Reddit and Twitter people seemed to vote in quite large majority for simply being able to add exact time stamps for symptoms and factors rather than my idea for extra time period squares.

I think this will be simplest too to implement at least for now, so it’s likely we’ll go with this. Hopefully within the next couple of months.

i would much prefer this over the set “am/morning/afternoon/evening” category set up- that way i can identify exactly when that morning my symptoms changed. i think this has a lot of potential where food sensitivities are concerned, because you can ideally see the time you ate the food vs. the time the symptoms started. of course this would require timestamps to be added to the food lists as well, which i would also like to have.

yes yes this looks fantastic! far more specific and accurate. i like it.

I’m one of those folks who tend to log once a day. For certain things I’ll log during the day but I can almost promise I will not be cognizant of an end time for the vast majority of my symptoms. Partly because some don’t ever go away and partly because thanks to my ADHD I don’t mark it as memorable when I feel better because if I’m feeling better my brain is off focusing on other things.

But, with that said, being able to add starting time stamps to the things I’d like to track that way would be awesome.

Is this the same as… The ability to track a symptom as a timestamped quantity vs the current way which is a general (pre,am,mid,pm) severity (mild, moderate,severe,unbearable)

I’m wanting to track timestamped heart palpitations where knowing exactly “how many” and when I have them per day/week/month is quite a bit more important than how severe each one is. (Usually same)

Still looking for a simple time stamp, so I can open app and record symptom as it happens. That would be most helpful for me.

This is exactly what I was going to say.

This is EXACTLY what I’ve been wanting!!! Different format than I considered, but still providing the most desired features.

Is there any update on this? This is by far the biggest issue I have with my day-to-day usage of the app, and I agree with West that it intensely inhibits my ability to track meaningful correlations. In fact, I find the four time periods pretty useless for my purposes, and I would strongly prefer a timestamp system, and it would be particularly great to set beginning and end time for symptoms like migraines.

However, there are some symptoms that are present by default and I’m actually trying to track short reductions in them (mental health for the most part, but also some GI stuff). This is the only reason I find the four time periods useful, but even then it’s too coarse-grained to actually illuminate what causes improvements: it would be much better to just have the option to set a symptom as either positive or negative. That way I wouldn’t need to set it to “Severe” by default for almost every time period of every day and mark tiny breaks of improvement. If you gave us positive symptoms, I would turn off the time periods entirely in favor of timestamps (preferably ranges).

I’m currently designing this, we just want to make sure we get it right rather than implementing that and realising it’s not what people want.

If you’re interested here is a design I came up with. The idea is that you could long press a factor or symptom to bring up a modal where you can input much more specific time periods (but also removing the need to have to input exact timestamps).

(oh you’ll also note that you are able to input factor intensities in my image - but that’s something else we’re working on)

Let me know what you think: https://imgur.com/a/XQ52L4x

I like the flexibility of your new design! Some symptoms (like pain) definitely need timestamps, others (like acne) only need one rating a day, so a design that accommodate both kinds of symptoms would be great. Also, factor intensities is definitely something to look forward to.

Thank you so much for the update! I’m not sure that particular implementation will be a huge improvement, though. It seems like it would take a lot of mental effort. I think it might be better to model it after a combination of the bowel movement tracker, where there is a single “add” box (the blank one with the pencil icon), and the sleep duration interface, where it allows you to edit the beginning and end time for the symptom (ideally it would default to the current exact time as the start time). It would include a box for the symptom severity, and an “all day” checkbox for symptoms where that’s applicable. It would also be nice to have a default symptom length interval in the settings somewhere (and even more useful to have a setting for each symptom that you can set to default to different behaviors: some symptoms would default to “all day” being checked, while another might default to 15min, and another could default to 1hr).

For instance, if I have a stomach cramp and I click the “add” box next to that symptom, it would bring up an interface similar to the sleep duration section, including a symptom severity box, automatically inputting the current time (5:50p) as the start time (editable) and, if the default interval were 15min, it would default to the end time being 6:05p, which could be edited later when I know when the cramps subside. Then when I’m finished recording the symptom, that add box would be replaced by a box indicating the severity of the symptom, and a new add box would appear to its right (just like it does with the sleep duration interface). Does that make sense?

Ok here’s a clarification of my idea: https://imgur.com/I5xtPY1.png

You could leave the “set overall” button as the “all day” option.

Thanks Anna!

A couple of questions for you:

1. What if you are experiencing that symptom right now, i.e. don’t know how long it will last, but still want to enter it? How would that flow look?

2. At least how I see it, entering exact timestamps and durations could take much longer if you have a lot of symptoms through the day. I initially had a design like yours, but I imagined it would be a much more laborious process than being able to just tap a time chunk.

Also worth noting, this idea I had above, is not an alternative to exact timestamps, it’s still something we might do also in the future, but for now I’m trying to cater to the majority of people.

Oops the 2nd point wasn’t really a questions - but wanted to just get your thoughts on it

Hi James, thank you for considering my suggestion!

1. If you start experiencing a symptom and don’t know how long it will last, I think there should be a default duration. Ideally, it would be customizable in the settings, and even more ideally, it would be customizable per symptom. For instance, I would expect a migraine to last 6hr, and a stomach cramp to last 30min. So when I try to enter stomach cramps right when they start, the start time would automatically be filled in with the current time, and the end time would automatically be filled in with the time 30min from now.

2. I can see how some version of this idea might be time consuming, but I think that a combination of (a) setting a default duration for each symptom and (b) automatically having the start and end time filled out for you as soon as you click the box would make it extremely efficient to add symptoms throughout the day. It takes the mental load off almost entirely while the symptoms are happening: literally all you have to do is (1) click the box to open the dialogue, (2) click the severity, and (3) click Confirm. The 1st and 3rd clicks will become habitual/motor memory very quickly, and the 2nd is something you’ll need to briefly think about no matter how you enter it.

I think this would actually save me a lot of time, because usually when I try to enter a symptom using a time block, I have to add a note to specify when exactly it started, and even trying to figure out which time period I’m in takes up a non-negligible amount of mental space when I’m in a hurry to log the symptom and get back to what I’m doing.

Is there a way to get the best of both worlds, where you essentially use the existing symptom interface to capture data at the present 6-hour interval (or one of the presets shown in James’s recent images) and store the data in a way that’s compatible with the “free range” interface that Anna’s images have?

I’m not sure if this belongs here, but in the longer term I’d like to see this level of detail available for all of the sections. The kinds of insights that would be really valuable (to me, at least) would be like, every time you eat food X within two hours of taking med Y you have symptom A within the next B hours

If some people like the fixed time-block interface, it would certainly be ideal to have the option somewhere in settings to choose between my suggested interface and the existing one — assuming there aren’t any problems integrating them in the backend.

And I agree (if I’m understanding you correctly), I think that almost every use case would be better with my interface than the fixed time blocks, largely because the exact start time is often very important as you point out.

The only use cases where I prefer the fixed time block interface are symptoms that are present by default and I want to log their absences. But those would be much better served by having “good symptoms” which would have a positive scale from “none” to “fantastic.” Like, my default state is task paralysis, so I usually “set overall” task paralysis to “severe” and block out times when it improves; but I would much rather have a “symptom” for good task initiation, and I would log specific times when it improves; “severity” could be replaced with “intensity” to be more neutral.

You’re understanding me correctly. :)

I use tags in the mood section to talk about ‘positive’ things–today I added accomplished–and this might also be good as a factor (which I don’t use at all); but I like your idea a lot. It’s also very au-courant to have a section for positives.

Thanks for expanding Anna.

If the time blocks go down to as little as 5 minute intervals, wouldn’t that be close enough?

As for “positive” symptoms, could custom ratings be better for that?

I’ll have to think about this some more, but seems like both options might be good in the long term.

The only thing I’m trying to figure out is for example what happens if someone enters say, AM as severe, but then enters a timestamp at 7am that is mild?

Also what would happen if you enter a timestamp that crosses over into another timestamp you already entered, should there be a message each time saying you can’t do this or would you like to override?

I’ll need to think more about the best way to do this.

If the time blocks go down to as little as 5 minute intervals, wouldn’t that be close enough?

I don’t care about precision at the level of 5min versus 1min. I wouldn’t even care if you implemented my interface while limiting the timestamps to 30min increments: 30min would be a perfectly fine level of precision for most of my purposes. What I care most about is how fluid the experience is, and how much cognitive load it requires.

Think about it in terms of the number of cognitive tasks involved. In both interfaces, I need to consider the severity of the symptom, and I need to click at least three unique buttons. However, the time-block interface adds three additional non-negligible cognitive tasks: (1) identifying the current time, (2) visual search and match for the appropriate time blocks, and (3) additional clicks for every time block that covers the symptom interval (e.g., if I have a symptom that lasts an hour, I would have to click 12 different 5min time blocks). For someone like me with ADHD, these additional tasks are more than enough to make me completely forget my next planned action and lose my train of thought.

It might be helpful to think of my interface as the “autofill” interface, because I believe that is the primary feature that makes it superior to the time-block interface, no matter how fine-grained the time blocks are. (In fact, the more fine-grained the time blocks become, the harder the symptom entry would be, since I would have to look through a bigger range of buttons, and more buttons would need to be clicked to cover larger intervals.) Literally all you have to think about with my autofill interface is the severity: you don’t even need to think about which buttons to click, because the interface doesn’t require you to choose between different buttons.

The only thing I’m trying to figure out is for example what happens if someone enters say, AM as severe, but then enters a timestamp at 7am that is mild?

If you have both interface options available, I’m assuming that any given symptom would be either my autofill interface or the time block interface, so for any given symptom, I wouldn’t expect it to be possible for the time blocks and timestamps to overlap. However, if they did, I would simply interpret your example (assuming a symptom duration of 1 hour for the timestamp) as:

6-7am - Severe 7-8am - Mild 8am-12pm - Severe

Also what would happen if you enter a timestamp that crosses over into another timestamp you already entered, should there be a message each time saying you can’t do this or would you like to override?

I think a warning with a couple of options would be ideal. The warning would tell you the exact time period of the existing entry, Interval A, that would be overwritten by the new Interval B. Then it would have two buttons:

(1) “Overwrite previous entry” i.e., give Interval B precedence (don’t erase Interval A, but cut it off wherever it overlaps with B). (2) “Adjust current entry” which would just send you back to the logging interface – or, even better, it could send you back to the logging interface and automatically adjust the time interval of the current symptom (Interval B) so that it no longer overlaps with Inveral A. It would have to make an executive decision if Interval B contains Interval A as to whether to keep the portion of B that came before A or after it, but that wouldn’t matter much because the user would just be faced with the logging interface, so they could still easily edit it before clicking “confirm.”

As for “positive” symptoms, could custom ratings be better for that?

I’ve been using custom ratings for an approximation of this, but they aren’t treated the same way as symptoms in the insights. I haven’t been able to find a way to see what predicts my custom ratings at all. If I’m missing something, please let me know. (However, it would still be more convenient if they were simply treated as symptoms since that’s how I think of them, and I’d like everything that applies to other symptoms to apply to these as well.)

Actually I’d like to revise my first sentence: I do think more precision is better, and I would prefer exact times to time blocks: I guess I was using hyperbole to emphasize the importance of autofilling.

Just to add an alternative perspective: I agree with Anna that it is important to think about the number of tasks involved. Given her ADHD, and the fact that she enters symptoms immediately, it makes a lot of sense that time chunks would add too many cognitive steps for her. On the other hand, my use of this app is determined by my purely physical neuromuscular disease. I don’t record symptoms as soon as they start because it’s too much physical effort for me to get to my phone that quickly and that often. Instead I check in at a couple of set times each day and record everything at once. Because of that, I would have to identify the correct start time no matter which of the current proposals I’m using. And at that point, I personally find it easier to tap a few boxes than to scroll searching for an exact time. I certainly understand how difficult it is to choose the solution that will be easiest for most people! I just wanted to help round out the conversation by showing my own different use case.

Thanks for your alternative experience, Micaela: I do think it would be great if the ultimate solution were optional (i.e., both interfaces available as options in the settings), and ideally optional for each symptom/symptom group.

I’m a big fan of simple, one click entries.

For me, the time stamp of when I first notice the symptom and it’s severity are the two most important things for me to track. Because of this, I use the Health Measurements section for almost everything I track now. I do this because I can create a thing that says “Pain Levels” and then click the + and put in a number 1-10 and in a single click I now have a time stamp and a severity for a specific thing. Then, if I notice the pain or symptom subsiding, I can come back and track a lower severity number with a new time stamp in just one click.

Honestly, most of the time I’m so relieved when my symptom eases that I don’t care to come back to the app and track the end time.

The other parts of the app that I’m still using after more than a year are the BM tracker, the Energy tracker, and the Mood tracker. And ALL of these things have the time stamp ability.

I don’t use Factors hardly at all and I don’t ever use Symptoms anymore. Because it was way, way too complicated a system. Especially if I am in pain, or having brain fog, or any other “bad” thing that actually needs charting.

Even with Mood, I went in and removed all but the most basic tags, and now I just log the mood level, which generates a time stamp, and then I’ll add a note if I want to explain what’s going on. Because that’s easy. It’s all in one spot, I don’t have to scroll through lists and expand areas to find the Factors or Symptoms that triggered the Mood.

When I first started using the app over a year ago, I went in and set up everything. I went super granular and detailed. And as new areas and features came out, I set those up too. But then, tracking my issues became so much work. It was exhausting and took way more mental energy than I had to give it. When you’re low on spoons and only have a tiny spoon left, you’re not going to spend it on tracking. Plus, it was taking me half an hour at bedtime to log everything for the day that I had forgotten to log earlier. It just was too much.

And so I had to make the app smaller. Find what was important to me. Time Stamps and Severity.

Also, my day starts at 11am if I’m getting up early. Bedtime is 4am, and sometimes even later. Being lock inside the time blocks has been manageable everywhere except Sleep. The time constraints in Sleep made me quit using that block altogether. Though it does auto fill from my Apple Health information.

I guess for the TLDR: I hate the time blocks, I don’t like having to guesstimate or be locked into a duration for something. All I need are Time Stamps and Severity and the ability to add Notes.

And an actual 1-10 Pain Scale along with a “failed attempt” option on the BM tracker.

Anna, I’ve made a mock up which includes both time chunks and timestamps. Let me know what you think?

https://vimeo.com/704241514

What I’m currently thinking is time chunks would be first, as it would be simpler to add, then timestamps would follow soon after. But would still like to get more feedback on this mock up from more people first.

I really like that mock-up. It’s very versatile and looks like it can be as granular or as simple as someone wants it. Very cool!

If it would also look like that under Moods and Symptoms, that would be fantastic.

Thanks again for putting so much time and thought into this, James. I think the interface looks good; there are a couple things I’m unclear about (e.g., what does “yes” mean for intensity?), but it seems like it wouldn’t take much time to adjust to.

The only concern I have with the setup of having three entry mode “tabs” to switch between within each logging interface is the possibility that some symptoms would always be more convenient to log with timestamps (e.g., stomach cramps), while others would always be easier to log with time blocks (e.g., bloating), so it could get mentally taxing for someone to switch between them for each symptom.

The simplest solution would be to give users the choice (in global settings) between either showing the entry mode “tabs” for all symptoms, or choosing a default entry mode (either overall, timeblock, or timestamp) for each symptom individually — I would opt for the latter.

But another possible solution that just occurred to me would be a modification of the “default duration” idea I suggested earlier (which I think I see implemented in the mockup, so thank you). There are some symptoms, like bloating or task paralysis, where the changes are gradual and the states are long-lived. Let’s call these “persistent” symptoms, for lack of a better term. Ideally, for me, when I log a timestamp for one of these persistent symptoms, I’m thinking of it more as an inflection point in a continuous stream of the symptom. For instance, if I log moderate bloating at 10am, and then mild bloating at 1pm, I would assume that the intervening time (10a-1p) was all moderate bloating; then if I log severe at 7pm, I would assume 1-7p was mild; and so on. So in the backend, the end time for one timestamped symptom would be whatever the start time ends up being for the following timestamp.

Ideally this would be a setting that could be defined for each symptom in the same way that you would define the default duration interval for any symptom. The interface for any symptom with the “persistent” option checked would remove the end time entry box, and it would temporally join each new timestamped entry, regardless of whether the severity changed from one entry to the next. I don’t know how feasible this is, it just struck me as a way to adapt the timestamps to more long-lived symptoms. If it’s workable, I would strongly prefer it to fixed time blocks, no matter what size the blocks are.

I hope that my latter suggestion is possible, but if not, I would definitely prefer the option to set entry mode per symptom. Regardless, great to see that progress is being made, really excited and happy that you’re working on this!

It looks great! I do like the idea that Anna had of being able to toggle the three tracking options (globally, not for individual items).

Really appreciate that this is under consideration, and happy to see that changing the time of the end of the day is also on your radar!

For whatever it’s worth, I just want to emphasize that if I had to choose between (a) more precise time stamps and (b) fewer cognitive steps involved in logging, I would choose (b). In other words, from the perspective of someone with extremely bad executive dysfunction, a solution involving simply breaking up the time blocks into smaller increments would almost certainly be a step backward for me, and I would probably revert to using the default four blocks to reduce the mental load of logging.

One of the major selling points of the interface that I suggested was that it removes the need to reflect on the current time by automatically filling it out when you click on the button. It may sound ridiculous to someone more neurotypical, but the extra thought about what time block I’m currently in is sometimes enough to make me forget what I was about to log or do next.

I actually agree with Nina G that the Health Measurements section is closer to what I want; the main reason I don’t use it is because thinking about what number would best describe my current symptom is also a distracting extra step, compared to just clicking the severity button until it looks like the right color (which is much more intuitive and requires less thought).

Waiting on this feature is why I barely use the app anymore. If I experience mood swings, a series of dysfunctional thoughts, or physical symptoms, the current system for symptoms and factors is too broad to see the patterns.

Slightly more basic than the plan, but even adding a “post” would be helpful. There’s a “pre” before 6am, so add “post” for after 10/11pm. And someone may have already said this, but even ability to adjust the times, like pre= before 8, morning 8-12, etc., would help for people with unusual hours - plus adding a “post” slot for us night people.

I’m here to say I don’t like this idea–I need the entries to be quicker and more intuitive not more times to fill out that I don’t at all remember. So of you add this I’d really like it to be an optional addition, not required like it is right now for meds.

I agree, as the app expands it is becoming harder for those with executive functioning issues to use. The solution would be in letting users customize what their initial entry interface looks like. And then maybe a drop down that has everything else if they want to be more detailed. Now it’s all broken into “health tests” which I don’t hate, the quiz format is faster, obviously letting users create their “quick entry” quiz would also work. Just select which factors you care about the most. Group them together for a check in quiz. The rest can still be there, but it’s much less overwhelming.

For me that would look like “mood, medications, symptoms” if I was trying to focus on something specific that wasn’t any of those I’d probably use the goal system honestly and mark it as a goal. I don’t understand why you can edit what is in the health quiz check in, but you can’t make medications one of them😖.

Really hard to figure out what should be a factor vs a symtom. For example, having sex is not a symtom lol but it’s default in the reproductive symptom category

This would also be great to see if anything is affected within a certain time of doing an activity (like eating or exercise and how quickly they make you feel x)

Yes pleeeeease make it possible to log symptoms the same way as mood - with time stamps, or with time periods to mark when the symptom ends and then user can log next time the symptom starts

Same here!