ExpiWell for EMA and ESM: Your Ultimate Guide

Overview of ExpiWell for Experience Sampling and Ecological Momentary Assessments

ExpiWell for ESM and EMA Assessments

ExpiWell is a software platform created and designed by top researchers who conduct Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) and Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) and can be used for any type of ESM, EMA, and longitudinal assessments.

Our goal is to make the process for researchers simple, yet packed with powerful features. Absolutely no coding is needed! You can focus on designing your study, collecting your data, and writing your papers.

How does ExpiWell work? Here is a general overview:

  1. Researchers create an ESM/EMA project on our website. This project can contain multiple surveys which are scheduled over days, weeks, or months.
  2. Each project researchers create has a unique access code that is automatically generated or created by the researcher. 
  3. Participants download our free ExpiWell mobile apps on iOS or Android. See here for more information on our ExpiWell mobile apps.
  4. Participants sign in to the app and then enter the access code to start the project. You can also directly invite participants who have downloaded the app to the project, if you have their email address.
  5. Researchers schedule their surveys through a calendar-type function. All surveys are automatically scheduled based on participant time zones (e.g., a 9am-scheduled survey will be sent at 9am Eastern Time and 9am Pacific Time). Notifications and reminders are sent to participants via the mobile app.


  1. The mobile app opens and closes surveys to participants based on allotted timeframes (e.g., a survey window open from 9am-10 am). This helps researchers to not have to manually remove participant data if they don't complete it on time or complete all surveys in one shot at the end of the day.
  2. Real-time tracking of participant response rates can be done through our system. You can check ongoing response rates and send additional personalized notifications to participants who have a low response rate. No need to download data and link surveys to determine individual response rates at the end of the project.
A participation log
  1. All surveys for a participant are automatically connected. No need for researchers to create unique participant IDs and manually link up surveys over time for each participant.
  2. Researchers can pay participants through the ExpiWell app via Amazon gift cards. This can help save on administrative costs of manually contacting participants and having them share the payment information.
  3. Data is downloadable in CSV format which can be exported to Excel, SPSS, SAS, or other programs.

Things to note:
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  1. There is no charge for sending ExpiWell notifications or reminders to complete surveys . . . so fire away on as many surveys as you'd like!
  2. Web links can be included in surveys. Please click HERE to learn more. Researchers sometimes create a survey in ExpiWell to direct participants to a longer survey using another survey platform; one can use ExpiWell as a notification and tracking platform as there is no additional charge for any number of notifications and reminders to participants. However, many researchers choose to use ExpiWell's survey features to reduce the the problems of using multiple survey platforms. Researchers have created surveys as long as 300 questions with the "Auto Forwarding" feature that moves to the next question once participants select a response option.

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