Gary — regarding your point about a “scale entry”: At the moment, the Tonic entry field is very flexible allowing you to enter any combination of text and numbers. The flexibility is nice, but as you point out, sometimes data entry would be faster if Tonic presented a data-entry device — keyboard/keypad/picklist/etc. — most appropriate for that entry. There would be an extra step in the setup for an item, specifying the type of data to be entered, but the on-going data entry would be easier. We’re working on this!
This leads into your larger point about the design challenge: how do you design a product that simultaneously:
is easy-to-learn, easy-to-use, and rapid-to-use (minimizing steps), but also
is adaptable to the wide-range and constantly-changing set of user needs (where each user is different, and even each day is different), and
fits within the limitations of current technology (functions, screen size, etc.).
Even within the design community, this kind of meta-design challenge is cutting edge stuff. (See my friend Hugh Dubberly’s paper “Ability-centered Design: From Static to Adaptive Worlds”, as an example of some of discussion in the design community.)
What Tonic is today is an evolution from what I presented a few years ago at our very first QS meetup. Mostly it has gotten more flexible, as we’ve come to appreciate more and more the diversity of people’s self-care and self-experimentation practices. On the whole it has also gotten easier-to-use, and more streamlined, through both good design and a lot of under-the-hood engineering. So, net-net today’s Tonic is much, much better than my first prototype (early 2006). But, it’s not at all been a straight line. We’ve learned from each iteration of the product, and from all the users of the various iterations. Developing this solution over the past many years has been an exploration of its own. Discussions like this forum help a lot!
I completely forgot that app data is automatically backed up via iTunes - peace of mind attained.
I’d be happy to share some of my gDocs charts; however, I’m not actively tracking anything right now. I’m in the process of starting a new project after having spent the last 2 weeks standardizing my diet, sleep onset/offset times, caffeine intake (none), and excercise regularity/intensity - less variables to control for! : )
I wanted to do a double-blind melatonin study but I’ve been told melatonin must be dissolved underneath the tongue.
I’ll have something started soon and would be happy to share my charts.
I just bought Tonic, and have started logging how many glasses of water I consume per day. I may not be using it correctly. Is there any way to visualize my performance?
You can see a history of your entries within Tonic (see post #13 above).
Tonic does not have built-in charting yet. But, you can easily export your data as a .csv file, and chart it using a spreadsheet or data analysis application.
Jolly — Sorry, no Android version at the moment. We’re open to partnering with a brilliant Android developer to make this happen sooner rather than later I know of no other app like Tonic on any platform. Though there are many apps providing reminder and/or tracking functionality with a focus on a particular issues (mood, food, exercise, etc.), there’s nothing else with the flexibility to support anything/everything health-related.
Responding to feedback from Tonic users on this forum and elsewhere, we’ve submitted an update to Apple. It should be available for download (free update) in a few days.
Improvements include:
Streamlined creation of unscheduled events (removed Done step)
Journal entry enhancements:
Carriage Return now allowed in journal text
Journal text now scrolls
Commas in journal text included when exporting data
History of entries for a particular tonic can now be deleted in one step
Visual indicator to make more obvious that there are options for Daily & Weekly schedules
REVIEWS/RATINGS — Please take a moment to enter a review and rating for Tonic on the AppStore. We’d very much appreciate it!
The update is already up on the AppStore! Perhaps Apple is getting speedier.
I have been using the Tonic app for a couple weeks now and I have to say that I am very impressed. While I have been tracking various things (calories, HR, sleep, weight) for years, I have had a fairly low-tech system. I would note the information on a note using a pen and paper or jot it down in a note on my phone. Then I would transfer that data to a spreadsheet at a later date for analysis. Recently I have wanted to start tracking more complex items and thought that jotting notes would get messy.
Once you have setup your “tonics” (I have probably spent 60 minutes over a couple weeks dialing in my tonics) I have found that entering data is just as fast as pen and paper, but it is WAY more organized, is easily exportable to a spreadsheet format, and it has reminders.
I would like to share a couple ways that I am using the flexibility of the App to help me track.
You can alter the “Amount” text and the “Units” for any Tonic. You can also add two additional entry fields for each tonic. I have used this flexibility to personalize the data entry with phrasing that primes me to be more compliant and provide useful information.
For Example: When I select my “Weight & Morning Mood” tonic it says,
"I weigh ______ lbs, and I feel _______ (1=sad, 5=happy)
When I select my “Be Productive” tonic it says,
“I worked on _______ for, _______ mins”
Normally these would just say “Amount _____ units.” I find it much more enticing to have the phrasing there to help prime you for feedback.
Setup scheduled and non-scheduled Tonics. The app allows you to schedule Tonics daily or weekly, but it also allows you to enter non-scheduled items. I have setup scheduled tonics for tracking: Fish Oil, Weight & Morning Mood, Be Productive, Eat Moderately, Exercise, Practice Guitar, Write 750 Words." These are all things I have trouble doing regularly unless I am tracking. I also have non-scheduled items like “Video” and “Reading” that I have been known to spend many hours on with no prompting at all. When I slip down these rabbit holes I can easily add an unscheduled Tonic that I have already setup to track these items.
Use the History file to review a particular Tonic. While it would obviously be awesome if Tonic somehow converted all this data into beautiful and enlightening visual representations and overlaid all your tonics on top of each other so that you could visualize correlations, I believe it is unfair to expect that type of power this early in the development of the app. The History file does allow you to quickly scan the entries you have made for a particular item and I have found it motivational to continue tracking.
There are Bugs… Here are some that I have noticed:
Done & Save issue has mostly been resolved but it still present when you create a Tonic for the first time
The app does not work well in Landscape mode. There are multiple times when it asks you to rotate back to portrait to enter data or in some cases part of the display reverts to portrait while the Ipad is oriented in landscape. I prefer landscape, especially for long-form data entry so I hope they resolve this issue.
You cannot delete a scheduled Tonic from your daily schedule. This is really annoying! Lets say you wake up and decide that you want to remove something from your daily list. There is no way to remove it from that day only. You should be able to open it and just delete. This is compounded when you update a Tonic because the app will post the updated Tonic to your daily schedule in addition to the original Tonic.
There is room for improvements. Here are some ideas I have:
The app seems to be very time-sensitive and notes with Color and Faces whether you are early, on-time, or late. This may be a nice feature if you have time-sensitive Tonics, but what if you just want to have a daily Tonic with no specific time attached? In order to have it repeat every day you have to assign it a time, but if you enter data into the Tonic before or after the scheduled time you will probably get a Yellow check mark instead of a Green check mark. That is annoying. It takes a couple extra steps to change it back to Green by selecting “On time”
Your daily summary shows which Tonics you have completed with a Green or Yellow check mark and after the day is over unfinished Tonics show up in Red Text. When you look at the history for a particular Tonic it does not list any Red unfinished Tonics. It only shows the Yellow and Green checked items. It would be nice to have the option to see the “missed” Tonics too.
Data Visualization would be nice. Once simple idea - a grid of Tonics on the Y-axis and Day of the week on the X axis. Each tonic is represented by Red, Yellow, Green square. Really I want at least 4 colors. Red (Did not Complete), Yellow (low, 1, early, etc), yellow-green (medium, 2, on-time etc), Green (High, 3, late, etc) These color schemes should be adaptable. If it is time sensitive then it can relate to time, if it is for ranking mood it can be switched to that scale.
Right now you can only add 3 data points for each Tonic. I would like more. I have one particular Tonic (Body Fat Measurements) for which I would like 8 data points.
You definitely get the prize for most creative use of Tonic’s naming flexibility (for Amount and Units) Brilliant! Just goes to show that no matter how carefully we tool creators have thought through the possibilities, some users will do things we’d simply not imagined.
Thanks for all the enhancement suggestions. Very much appreciated.
Note, however, that one of your requested features is in fact available. You can easily delete a scheduled item from your daily schedule: just swipe it left-to-right. Use this gesture to delete any item listed on the “Tonic Schedule” and “Tonics” screen. This is actually a common iOS gesture for deleting items in lists. For example, try it in the built-in Notes, Mail, and Messages apps.
Thank you for the response. I know, I finally figured out how to delete the Tonics. I am new to iOS so I am simple learning some of these basic maneuvers…
I am still using Tonic to track about 10 things daily and I would say that it is a full-blown habit for me. I am just starting to explore visualizing my data through Google spreadsheets and other tracking sites like Beeminder.
For example, here is a graph of my progress on practicing guitar. I keep track of minutes played and notes on the session using the Tonic app. I use the BeeMinder site to visualize my progress and create additional motivation to continue.
The data is very easy to export and work with in any spreadsheet software. I can’t wait until you have some built in visualization tools.
Good to know, because I’m worrying that I won’t visualize the data as much as I want/should because of the exporting process. Also, is it exportable to Apple’s iWork Numbers? (I don’t know how literal the “any spreadsheet software” statement is.) I don’t have iWork Numbers but I’m thinking of getting it when I get an iPad down the road. Of course if I do I might want to enter the data directly into it, right now I don’t know.
I don’t have any experience with iWork. I have imported the data into Excel and GDocs. It worked fine in both cases.
You can export one spreadsheet file for each Tonic (one action exports all Tonics - Great Feature) and includes a column for Scheduled Date and Time, Completed Date and Time, up to 3 variables of data, and a journal entry.
I have noticed that if you have daily tonics and you do not “check” them because you did not complete them then you will get no record in your history of that tonic. This can cause a problem if you want to merge data from several different Tonics. If each set of data have a different range of dates then it becomes labor intensive to cut and paste them together. For this reason I have started “checking” tonics even if I did not complete them. I will just put “0” minutes, or “none” in the data field to highlight that I did not complete the Tonic. Hopefully this will make it easier to overlay data from the same time period and see correlations.
That being said, I have found the real power of Tonic to be in the day to day use. Taking a couple minutes at the beginning of the day and the end of the day to think about what I accomplished or to be reminded to do something has had a powerful effect. I truly believe it has helped me be more mindful and in the moment.
John — Tonic exports your data in a .csv file, a basic file format that is readable by any spreadsheet or database program.
Jake — I’m no spreadsheet expert, but it can be quite easy to plot data from multiple time series even though the different series don’t have entries at the same times or even the same number of entries. It’s helpful to appreciate that you don’t have to put all the numbers into one table. You can create one chart even if the numbers come from different tables. In this example (attached) I’ve created two very simple data tables and plotted them onto one chart. This was done using Numbers, a spreadsheet program from Apple.
Tonic 2.0 is a new and updated release for iOS 5. As a Universal app, it now fully supports iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Tonic 2.0 also provides support for multiple users (previously in beta) making it ideal for a variety of family caregiving scenarios.
Other new improvements or changes include:
Per-user reminders
Custom lists for easy tracking of qualitative metrics (like mood or sleep quality)
Tonic list export/import, making it easy to share lists of tonics with others
Full support of all orientations on the iPhone
Maximum metrics per tonic expanded from three to eight
Thank you to all of you who have purchased and used Tonic. Your feedback has been invaluable in making Tonic a better product.
Pretty cool so far. I’d second (or third…) built in exportation to gDocs. I’d love to be able to throw the data into a google spreadsheet to do visualizations.
Only been using it for a few hours, but so far I’m liking it.
Or similar tools for Android?
I know of no other app like Tonic on any platform. Though there are many apps providing reminder and/or tracking functionality with a focus on a particular issues (mood, food, exercise, etc.), there’s nothing else with the flexibility to support anything/everything health-related.