Re: GNOME user survey 2011

[Felipe Contreras <felipe contreras gmail com>]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 07:11:34PM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> Many of these are borrowed from the Git user survey. The results as
>> you can see, can be quite interesting:
>> https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitSurvey2010
>>
>> It would be great if some sort of notification would popup directly on
>> user's desktops, this way it can ensured that the maximum amount of
>> people are notified. Otherwise, I think planet GNOME, reddit, twitter,
>
> That's impossible.

Everything is possible.

>> Google+ and so on should give plenty of feedback. Maybe also contact
>> Ars Technica, LWN, Phornix, and so on would help.
>
> Those are only technical sites. I think the results are going to be
> biased whatever you do.

How do you suggest to reach the end users if you already dismissed a
pop up directly from the desktop? If there isn't any way, at least
it's better than nothing.

>> === 03. How do you describe the amount of configurations available? ===
>
> I don't see the relevance of asking this. Furthermore the question is
> suggestive. Seems more to prove a point than anything else.

I do see the relevance, as I think it has been a big point of
contention raised by many users.

If you don't think it's very important, it could go to the end.
Besides, if the results are overwhelmingly pointing to "Too few"?
Don't you think it would be worth investigating? If the results end up
being "Just enough", then no harm done.

>> === 04. Which GNOME version(s) are you using? ===
>
> This should be asked earlier.

Where?

>> === 05. How do you compare the current GNOME version with the version
>> from one year ago? ===
>
> This is vague. Current as in GNOME 3.2 / 3.0, or current as in the
> version that they are using. Furthermore, you don't know if they upgrade
> each year.

Obviously it's the one they are using, otherwise how would they compare?

Would this help?
How do you compare your current GNOME version with the version from
one year ago?

>> === 06. What channel(s) do you use to request help about GNOME (if any)? ===
>
> With what purpose is this asked? No support is given on GNOME Bugzilla.
> Only minimal on gnome-list.

It's important to have a two-way communication with the users, don't
you think? So it's important to figure out what channels they actually
use. In fact, I was thinking to add another question asking if they
feel there's lack of communication with the team.

Resolving bugs is also support. But feel free to rephrase the question
to find out how users provide any kind feedback; questions, bug
reports, issues, etc.

>> === 08. Do you have any comments or suggestions for the GNOME team? ===
>
> How will you handle all the various comments you'll get? Git received
> 9000 answers.. who is going to read them all and summarize?

I would, if nobody takes the task. Most likely I will miss a lot of
important stuff if I'm the only one. But it is important to ask this,
as the survey is bound to be imperfect, and this is the only place
where people can actually suggest what to add to the next survey
(indirectly).

> Things I'd like to know:
>  - Multiple choice options to understand the responders technical
>   skills. So if they've submitted a patch, contributed code somewhere,
>   paid to write software, maintain some open source code, etc.
>   That is IMO a nicer way to understand their skills can someone to
>   rate themselves.

How about Zeeshan's suggestion of asking how often they use the terminal?

>  - If they use KDE/XFCE/something

That's confusing. You mean if they switch between GNOME and those? Or
that they used to use GNOME, and now they use that one?

How about:
Which other desktop environments have you used?

>  - other things to later on be able to determine if the survey is biased
>   in some way. Don't have concrete ideas atm.

Well, how are you going to determine if the survey is biased in some
way, or it's the actual GNOME users that are biased in some way?
Either way, I think the only important bias is geekness.

-- 
Felipe Contreras