Re: GNOME user survey 2011 (v4)

[Felipe Contreras <felipe contreras gmail com>]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:21 PM, Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org> wrote:
> 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?

This is a simple survey, not some kind of magical questionnaire. Just
having the information that users are unhappy is valuable already.
Plus, there's the free-form suggestion text.

>> 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.

Well, we don't know what the average GNOME user looks like, do we?

What we do know is that is the target user, and we have tried to
identify them with the question in the survey. Supposing we get a few
thousands of respondents, and only 10% qualify as "normal users", even
then, if you filter those answers, that should give you statistically
significant information about the whole target user-base.

Oh, and maybe a lot of people don't read LWN, but they don't have too,
just like anything viral, the link to the survey would spread, and
eventually at least few "normal users" are bound to have a geek friend
that would show them the link.

> 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?

Suppose you are right, and we do get that "useless" (not in my books)
information, what is the damage? Suppose however that we do find
something useful there. I think it's totally worth trying.

> 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.

Not necessarily. Again, asking a useless question doesn't hurt
anybody. Of course, if you have better questions, those  should be
prioritized over the ones that have less chance of being fruitful.

-- 
Felipe Contreras