Tasks can now scale to a Worker’s browser window size
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) has always given Requesters the flexibility to define powerful task interfaces. One aspect of this has been the FrameHeight attribute that lets Requesters specify the size of the task pane that Workers see so it appears the same for every Worker. This allows for consistent task interfaces, but often requires Requesters to set the frame height at a low value to accommodate Workers with small screens. That means Workers with larger screens have to spend unnecessary time scrolling up and down within the task pane. If Requesters set it too high, it forces unnecessary scrolling for Workers to submit the task.
To address this, we released an update that will let Requesters create tasks that automatically scale to the size of the window. This lets Workers use their entire screen and minimizes scrolling.
New HITs created from the Requester website automatically get the benefit of this change and will now scale to the size of the Worker’s browser window.
For Requesters that use the APIs, you can now create HTMLQuestion and ExternalQuestion tasks with the FrameHeight attribute set to 0 (zero) to allow your tasks to scale automatically.
HTMLQuestion:
<HTMLQuestion
xmlns="http://mechanicalturk.amazonaws.com/AWSMechanicalTurkDataSchemas/2011-11-11/HTMLQuestion.xsd">
<HTMLContent><![CDATA[
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
[Task content...]
</html> ]]>
</HTMLContent>
<FrameHeight>0</FrameHeight>
</HTMLQuestion>ExternalQuestion:
<ExternalQuestion
xmlns="http://mechanicalturk.amazonaws.com/AWSMechanicalTurkDataSchemas/2006-07-14/ExternalQuestion.xsd">
<ExternalURL>[my url]</ExternalURL>
<FrameHeight>0</FrameHeight>
</ExternalQuestion>Wrapping up
With this change we’re making it easier for Requesters to create tasks that Workers can complete efficiently. Workers can now be more productive, regardless of the size of their screen.
More information about the task types and frame height can be found in the MTurk API documentation:
We hope you found this useful. If you have any questions, please post a question to our MTurk forums. To become a Requester, sign up here. Want to contribute as a Worker customer? Get started here.
