Task Workflow Design and its impact on performance and volunteers' subjective preference in Virtual Citizen Science

James Sprinks, Jessica Wardlaw, Robert J. Houghton, Steven Bamford, Jeremy G. Morley

Abstract: Highlights•Citizen science participants prefer task designs with greater variety and autonomy.•This does not translate into better performance for either data quality or quantity.•Simpler task designs led to a greater volume of data being produced.•Interfaces that afforded the most direct capture of data led to better quality data.•Trade-offs exist between data volume and accuracy and between preference and productivity.