Re: GNOME user survey 2011 (v4)

[Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org>]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk> wrote:

And then well it's up to people if they listen, what they do with the
data and how they follow it up. Sure the results will need reviewing with
a little car

The answers are so vague that you are not going to be able to follow up on them. So they are unhappy with GNOME. Then what?

Plus the resulting debate may well answer even more questions than the
survey ever did...

If you care about debating and learning from our core group of dedicated supporters, yes. If you care about average users, well, I doubt you'll learn much from them this way. The questions and answers are just too vague and those people are likely not reading LWN so they won't be able to follow up with us that way.

Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps the average user of Linux/GNOME does know what GNOME is, knows how to contact the GNOME team and can tell you what version of GNOME they are using. And if they do, what is the survey going to tell you? That they do or don't like GNOME? And how long they have been using GNOME? What are we going to do with that information?

Before any survey, you should know how you are going to use the information so that you can be sure to ask the right questions.

Stormy