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In 2020 we received multiple paper letters saying our address had been randomly selected by a research agency called Ipsos MORI, inviting us to join their âknowledge panelâ to answer surveys on public opinion etc.âThe invitation was non-transferable and required Internet access, but they said if we didnât have Internet, or if we didnât think we could use it easily, then theyâd give us âa deviceâ to complete their surveys which could also be used for other Internet access.
When talking to them by telephone in December 2020, I was asked the âcan you use the Internet easilyâ question and I gave a slightly-lengthy âit dependsâ answerâare there any specific browser and OS requirements we had to meet (a consideration which, for the benefit of the presumed non-technical call-centre operator, I simplified to âour computers are getting old and some websites say we need a new one, so I canât promise every website will fully workâ or words to that effect), plus would the site âplay nicelyâ with my accessibility and other settings?âwhereupon she decided to sign us up for getting âdevicesâ just in case.
Ipsos arranged for a company called TEK Express to ship us a pair of Galaxy Tab A tablets (made in 2019, weight with cover 685 grammesâboth coversâ magnets fell out within 9 months due to light indoor wear-and-tear of the plastic); the tablets initially ran Android 9 and Chrome 87 (later updated), and were locked down by Samsung Knox remote-support software in âKioskâ mode, to restrict access to anything other than Chrome (without Incognito Mode), Adobe Reader and email.âSo yes they can be used for âother Internet accessâ but only as long as this can be done in Chrome on the tabletâthey do not provide connectivity to other devices, and you canât run your own software other than by loading it as Javascript in the browser.
In March 2021 a Chrome configuration update additionally blocked access to 60+ websites, including the videoconferencing services Zoom and Skype, the UK television channels, a dozen subscription film services, Apple, half a dozen âlivestreamingâ sites, well-known video-sharing sites, half a dozen file-sending and storage sites, Facebook Gaming, and a couple of corporate collaboration tools.âThis was presumably because each tablet was supplied with a Vodafone data SIM and some users might have been driving up Ipsosâs bills by streaming excessive video over *that* connectionâbut the block had to apply even on Wi-Fi.âSince the block list included sites that were already defunct anyway, I suspect it was an exercise in âwhat âproblemâ sites can we think ofâ rather than being based on actual traffic data.
Knoxâs Kiosk mode prevented me from reaching the full Android accessibility settings (indeed it could cause the system to hang if I tried to interact too much with the notification bar, and later versions prevented me from reading the notifications at all, although the status bar still told me that notifications were there to be read somehow); only brightness and limited-range font size options could be set, and when I phoned Support asking how to get out of Kiosk to enable dark mode, they âremoted inâ (asking only for the 5-digit âasset numberâ stuck to the case, so accidental connections to the wrong tablet probably could happenâit didnât prompt me to allow it; it did show notifications at the start and end of the support session but not during it)âand turned down the brightness control, saying thatâs the best we can do (no dark mode).âBut Androidâs âhold both volume keysâ shortcut for toggling Voice Assistant *did* work (after being enabled the first time and then repeated to actually switch it on), although you couldnât change its voice even though the Javascript Web Speech API showed at least three voices available.âSome application-level accessibility settings were still available: the Email applicationâs menu - cogwheel - âMake Email app darkâ was allowed but doesnât apply to the email body, and Chromeâs dark theme (plus, if youâre adventurous, enable-force-dark under chrome://flags) was allowed, although it wasnât possible to add bookmarks or change the home page.
The Kiosk mode also prevented us from interacting with the software update process.âIf we turned the tablets fully off when not in use, updates tended not to happen at all (weâd be constantly notified theyâre pending but were unable to interact with these notifications) so we had to leave them switched on to standbyâbut this caused the tablets to periodically play *sounds* when restarting after an update and at other seemingly-random times, and Kiosk prevented us from accessing any setting to disable these sounds.âThis was not a major problem until one of us accidentally left a tablet in the bedroom overnight and it played its sound at *five oâclock in the morning* on a day when we really needed to have slept well.âDo not leave these tablets anywhere where youâd be disturbed by occasional loud beeping sounds at any time of day or night.â(We were later able to adjust *some* volume settings by tapping to expand the popup that briefly appears after one of the hardware volume buttons is pressed, but noises are still possible.)
Another problem was that the security policy did not allow changing the site notification settings in Chrome, but you *could* choose to accept notifications from a websiteâin which case you wonât then be allowed to turn them off!âThis became an annoyance for us when a visiting child picked up one of our tablets and tried (and failed) to side-load a game from a questionable APK site: he said âyesâ to allowing notifications from the site, and they were frequent.âAt least we were able to change *some* of Chromeâs Settings / Site settings / Notifications to make them quiet and to block accepting them from new sites, but we werenât allowed to remove the sites heâd already added from that screenâbut we were still allowed to use Settings / Site settings / All sites / the site he visited / Clear & Reset.
Actual completion of Ipsos surveys wasnât too difficult, although they have asked some multiple-choice questions to which my natural reaction would be âit depends what you mean by this word and/or it depends on the exact circumstancesâI could write a paragraph about itâ but that wasnât an option so I had to go for ânot sureâ or âdonât knowâ which Ipsos apparently tries to discourage by displaying in grey text reminiscent of a disabled form control (perhaps to balance out the temptation to skip time-consuming questions?); I suppose these surveys are not focus groups.âSome later surveys did allow free text entry (e.g. what do I think the issues with battery-powered aircraft might be); typing large amounts of text on the tablet would of course have been difficult even with the supplied magnetic pen, but if necessary I could arrange for a paragraph to be temporarily placed on a private website so I can copy and paste it into the survey, and I was also able to make English voice-recognition work on the tablet via a microphone button above the keyboard, although the accuracy of this is variable.âWe donât remember being given *all* the UK surveys mentioned on Ipsosâs âNews and Pollsâ web pages, so it seems they limit participant load by not enrolling everybody in every survey.
Ipsos survey âpointsâ could be converted into shopping vouchers for a supermarket of your choice, although âyour choiceâ in this instance is limited to Tesco, Sainsburyâs, M&S, Argos or Amazon online.âWe were able to redeem discounts at the first three of these; the Sainsburyâs voucher took more than a day to activate but the others were more immediate; on the M&S self-checkout it was necessary to select âgift cardâ instead of âvoucherâ to avoid an âinvalid codeâ error.âThere was conflicting information about whether or not the discounts were permitted for use online and we didnât try.âBalance enquiry was by refreshing the voucher page for Sainsburyâs and by telephone for Tesco and M&S (03 numbers provided) which we confirmed worked: if your shopping bill is less than the value provided, then the voucher is automatically âpart-spentâ and some balance remains on it.âAt time of issue the expiry dates were set at 10Â years for Amazon, 5Â years for Tesco, 4Â years for M&S and just over 1Â year for Sainsburyâs.
All material © Silas S. Brown unless otherwise stated. Adobe is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Android is a trademark of Google LLC. Apple is a trademark of Apple Inc. Facebook is a trademark of Facebook, Inc. Javascript is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the US. Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung. Skype is a trademark of Microsoft in the US (but not in Europe because it was too similar to Sky). Tesco is a trademark of Tesco Stores Limited. Vodafone is a trademark of Vodafone Group Plc. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. YouTube is a trademark of Google Inc. Zoom is a trademark of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. Any other trademarks I mentioned without realising are trademarks of their respective holders.