For over 20 years, mTAB has been the industry leader in research analysis software. It has grown and developed and features have been added continually and that effort is ongoing.
However, throughout most of the life of the product, mTAB has retained the same basic look. 2012 will mark 25 years of business for mTAB and, as such, we felt this was a perfect time for a facelift.
You will see the changes from the moment you log in to the mTAB portal, with an updated 'Start mTAB' button leading the way. Pressing this button will launch the mTAB application, which continues to use the Java platform.
Once the software opens, it will become apparent that things have changed.
You are immediately welcomed with a fresh looking screen, providing you access to your Studies or MyTabs panels and prompting you to double-click a study to begin.
With a study selected, we move to the newly designed question selection view.
Replacing the concept of the tabs down each side of the screen, we now have a right side that displays all aspects of your tab at once.
This new layout now gives you the ability to see 'at a glance' what you have constructed and simplifying dragging questions between panels.
Each panel is naturally displayed in a minimized view, with an option in the top right corner to allow you to maximize each panel when required. Many of the features normally available within each of the panels are displayed in the minimized view.
For those that are not, they can be accessed either through the use of the right-click menu, or by maximizing each of the panels, as required.
Below you will see how the maximized panels will look. (Columns will be the same as Rows and is therefore not shown.)
The final area of enhancement in terms of the interface is the spreadsheet view. This too has received a more modern look but otherwise functions just as it did before.
Recodes
It will now be possible to import a set of new label responses to form the basis of a recode.
This will allow users who wish to create a new set of labels to construct them in Word or Excel and then paste them directly into the recode editor.
Formats
Three new format options are being introduced in this new version of mTAB.
Max and Min have been introduced which, when run with the quartiles and median formats, will help enormously in getting a good understanding of the spread of the data
In addition, Significance Tests - Percentages format can now be added to the Top and Bottom box formats, thereby increasing the ease of running significant differences on your ratings questions.
Export
Spreadsheet exports from mTAB will now be delivered in a later .xls version than previously used.
Simplified Datasheet
A new option is now available in the Simplified Datasheet so that you can add in the question names if required.
More can be learned about the Simplified datasheet in the How do I article in this newsletter.
As always if you need any advice on how to use these new features please contact the Gamma Support team.