Typical Types of Mechanical Turk Tasks

To give you a better sense of the breadth of work that MTurk supports, the following is a brief list of typical categories of work that flow through MTurk. Each of the categories has its own set of challenges to ensure quality results, but ultimately we can support virtually any type of MTurk task with our platform.

• Database Creation: Any type of work where you have a description of the type of data you want, but not the underlying list. Typical tasks include generating a complete list of car manufacturers, a directory of all coffee shops in Seattle, and a list of all songs by Bach. Once you have a database of information, you can then expand it with other tasks.
• Database Expansion: Any type of task where you have a data set, but you want to expand that data set by adding new properties or metadata. Typical tasks include finding all operating hours of a given set of restaurants, tagging all your photos with what objects are in them, and categorizing your data.
• Data Processing: Any type of task where you want a workforce to apply some judgment on a set of data that you already have to correct it or transform it. Typical Data Processing tasks include address data cleanup, data deduplication, and transcription work
• Search: Any type of task where you want Workers to find the answer to some unstructued question you have. Typical tasks include human aided mobile search, search engine keyword optimization, and general research questions
• Content Creation: Any type of task where you are requesting workers to generate new content - could be written, an images, or even a video. Typical tasks include creating editorial content, creating logos or other custom images, or a video review of a website
• Opinion: Any task where you want the users opinion. There is no right or wrong answer, but the answer has to be an answer to your question. Typical tasks include asking users for feedback, usability study information, or even asking what their favorite sushi restaurant is

As you can see, you can use MTurk for nearly anything, and the CastingWords platform allows you to get up and running quickly so you can focus on getting the data you need.