The computerization of the study allowed the data to be presented to participants in a novel and more meaningful way. Data from rounds two and three were presented to participants as a color histogram (or heat map) where the depth of color indicated the frequency with which respondents in the previous round had chosen each rating. Figure 1 shows the frequency with which each of the five responses had been chosen in the previous round (dark being many, light being few). The grey circle shows the choice

that the current participant Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical made on the previous round and the green circle shows the choice that they have made on the current round, (in round one each box was white as no previous selection had been made). In this way, participants could easily see how their responses compared to the consensus in the previous round and either confirm or update their www.selleckchem.com/products/Perifosine.html response accordingly. Figure 1 An example from the website of a

color histogram of previous Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical responses. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical The second question required a numeric answer. As the user sample size in each round exceeded 30 (and therefore the number of independent responses was sufficient to assume that the central limit theorem held with responses tending towards being normally distributed), we proceeded Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to adopt a parametric approach in the iterative feedback to users between rounds. Feedback to the user was given as a color again, but in this case, the depth of color indicated the number of standard deviations between the user’s response and the mean response (in other words, the z-score). As the scale for each answer was different, the normalized z-score

provided a consistent measure of agreement for each question. Z-scores were calculated as, z=x-μσ Where x was the value for which the z-score is to be calculated, μ was the mean of the values of the previous round and σ was the standard Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical deviation of the values from the previous round. The z-score was translated into a color depth Anacetrapib and shown around the input box for each item in the questionnaire. The mean value from the previous round, along with the participant’s own response from the previous round were also displayed on the questionnaire. An example of the quantity input box is given in Figure 2; the top box shows that the previous average quantity for this item was 73 and that this participant had said 53. The light color indicates the difference. The bottom box shows where the participant was in closer agreement in the last round. The numbers in the boxes show the participant’s updated response for this round. Figure 2 The quantity input box for two items as presented on the website.