OS questions draft, III

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

I marked with ! those lines which changed. That way you don't have to
read through the whole thing again.

I have pondered the two-section idea for the survey, and I am coming more
and more to the conclusion that we should ditch the idea of having different
question orders for each user-type, and we should ditch the idea of having
new questions for certain user-types. The survey should just be one long
survey, with the sections that we've been planning so far:
user-type (and laptopness), demographics, OS questions (this), and the
textbox at the end where we let them ramble if they want to. This will
a) save us some effort.
b) make the survey stronger. simple == good.
c) allow us to confirm what earlier we would have just assumed: that
   sysadmins don't word process, that business users don't play games,
   and other such silly things. The whole point of having a 'not important'
   option is for people who don't think it's important.

This means we should rethink the user-type-choosing section, because there's
no reason they can't choose more than one, except maybe that it would
confuse us for how to classify them. Unless they pick a primary one, and
then check others that apply as well. I seem to remember concluding that we
should do that a long time ago. Hm. :)

Thoughts?

----

Doug: want to write us some educational-software questions? I'd be
happy to include them. Try to keep them kind of broad. Probably about
three questions would be good:
* Availability of educational software
* price issues
* quality? brand-name companies? ability to read source code for it?
  what do you care about?

----

Lines that start with '>' I have not yet looked at, because they are
going to require some thought to reword. Also, when I have enough
time this weekend (heh), I'm going to go through each question and
try to decide how I would rank it, if I were taking the survey. I
expect I will run into a lot of ambiguities in doing that.

----

Omega is completely busy these days, and I'm partially busy from
other seul projects. Does anybody else here have skills and inclination
to whip up some html for this thing? When we want more people to start
looking at this, we're going to want to make it a bit prettier than
plain ascii...

----

Rank the following in terms of importance (foo, bar, baz, quux, squee,
unsure):
[define 'important' as 'would influence decision of using'. This way we get
things they need to do their work currently, and we also get things that they
don't currently do but would want to.]

![somebody want to integrate the above ideas into a good sentence, please?]
 
* local networking (connecting computers to each other at my office, home,
  or other location).
  [was: local networking (connecting to other computers at my office, home,
  or other location)]
* having your computer automatically configure and test your local ethernet
  connection
  [was: being able to auto-setup local ethernet connection]
* networking two or more locations (home to office, office to off-site
  location)
  [was: wide area networking (connecting two or more locations)]
* ability to connect to the machine from a remote location
  [was: being able to connect to the machine remotely]
* ability to run graphics from a remote location (rather than just text)
  [was: being able to run graphics remotely]
!* ability to act as servers for email, web pages, file access, telnet, file
!  transfer, etc.
!  [was: ability to run servers for email, web pages, file access, telnet, file
!   transfer, etc.]
  [was: running servers (mail, httpd, samba, telnetd, ftpd, etc)]
![should this be 'server' or 'servers'?]

* Using a direct connection (eg ethernet, cable modem) for connecting to the
  Internet.
  [was: internet connection (direct)]
* Using a modem for connecting to the Internet
  [was: internet connection (dialin)]
* When using a modem, having the connection established automatically when
  needed
  [was: internet connection (auto-dialin)]
!* ISP support for technical questions
!  [was: Adequate ISP support for technical questions]
  [was: ISP support]
!* usergroup support for technical questions
! [was: Adequate usergroup support for technical questions]
  [was: usergroup support]

!* ability to integrate computer with communications devices (telephone,
!  video conferencing, etc)
! [was: telephony (integrating computers and communications) [needs help]]

!* multimedia: ability to integrate computer with audio/visual devices (CD
!  player, foo)
![i want to come up with another example here. 'television' came to mind,
!but perhaps that's more confusing than useful.]
!  [was: multimedia (integrating computers and audio/video) [needs help]]

[games, graphics manipulation, sound - Should this be split further? Or is it
already covered in earlier "what do you want to use your computer for"
sections?]
![this should be elaborated for some usertypes and ignored for others, if we
! decide to have user-type-specific questions]

* being able to use (read/write/convert) files saved in industry standard word
  processing file formats
  [was: being able to use (read/write/convert) industry standard word processing file
  formats]
* being able to use (read/write/convert) files saved in industry standard graphics
  file formats
  [was: being able to use (read/write/convert) industry standard graphics file
  formats]
  [was: being able to use (read/write/both) industry standard word/graphics file
    formats
  [was: being able to convert from one word/graphics file format to another]

!* Access to OS source code (for modification, configuring, etc.).
!* Access to application source code (for modification, configuring, etc.)
! [was: ability to modify the os/application source]
  [was: being able to modify the os/application source]
  [was: being able to read the os/application source 
    being able to modify/redistribute the os/application source]
!* Freedom to redistribute OS/application source code and modifications
!  [was: ability to read/redistribute the os/application source]
  [was: being able to read/redistribute the os/application source]
![note question reorder]

* Cost of hardware for your computer, including initial purchase price and
  upgrades
  [was: cost, hardware]
* Cost of software for your computer, including cost of pre-installed software
  [was: cost, software]
* Cost of software upgrades for your computer
  [was: cost, upgrades]

* being able to transparently encrypt data going to and from your computer
  via the network.
* being able to transparently encrypt data stored on your computer
  [was: encryption]
["transparently" probably needs some help here]
!['transparently' means that it's happening without the user's direct
! intervention. That is, everything works the same way as it would if
! there weren't encryption happening, and the user doesn't have to care.]

* security (ability to prevent unauthorized people from using your
  system(s))
* secure banking and commercial transactions
* privacy (ability to keep other users from reading/deleting your files)
* automatic virus protection (the system takes care of it for you)
* manual virus protection (you run a program to scan or detect)
* able to obtain up-to-date virus information
* using a system which protects the user from making potentially dangerous 
  changes to system configuration 
* being able to make a backup of your system
* being able to make backup copies of large data files
* being able to undelete files 
!* Operating system (OS) stability (computer runs without crashing or
!  requiring restart)
!  [was: computer stability (computer runs without crashing or requiring
!   restart)]

* application stability (applications run without crashing or requiring
  restart)
  [was: stability (computer and applications run without crashing or
   requiring restart)

* prompt bugfixes 
[proposal to nuke this question. opinions?]
![kimboo: by 'prompt bugfixes', I mean that when the people in charge
! of the OS (or applications, I guess) get told about a bug, they
! provide a bugfix for it in a short amount of time. I had assumed
! that the actual patching of the bug would be automated. Nobody would
! accept it if it weren't fully automated.]

* adding/removing software in an easy and familiar way
* upgrades, ease of installation
* upgrades, ease of finding/getting
* having the installation stage for a program verify that all necessary
  components are present and functional

!* Plug-and-Play (PnP) support in hardware 
!  [was: PnP support in hardware]

!* multi-terminal support (multiple keyboards and monitors can be used
!  at the same time on the computer)
![somebody want to explain 'terminal' better than that? that's not a very
!good description...]
!  [was: multiterminal support]
!* multi-processor support (the computer can use multiple CPUs at once)
!  [was: multiprocessor support]

* speed of graphics rendering
* speed of internet connection
!* overall speed of machine
!  [was: speed of overall machine]
![note question reorder]

!* compatibility with existing hardware and computers
!  [was: compatibility with existing systems [hardware]]
!* compatibility with existing software, including older versions
!  [was: compatibility with prior versions [software]]

* being able to switch easily between running applications
  [was: being able to switch between running applications easily]
* ability to run many large applications at once
  [was: having many large applications open at once]
  [was: supporting >64 megs ram]

* ability to run a dynamic disk compressor (for example, doublespace)
  [was: able to run disk compression program]

> * automatic hard drive defragmenting (the system takes care of it for you)
> * manual hard drive defragmenting (you run a program to defrag)
> 
> * being able to automate certain administrative tasks (backups, defrags,
>   virus scans, send/receive email via ISP after hours, update software
>   database)
> * being able to rapidly obtain a list of resources used by the system and
>   hardware (IRQ's, DMA's, I/O ports, device names, chip type, speed,
>   RAM present, amount used by system, by processes, free, current 
>   VRAM, max VRAM, average VRAM used)
> * getting a good measure of performance of the system (don't know if this is
>   possible since all marks are relative to some extent) 
> * getting a list of all installed software, fixes, patches, version numbers,
>   etc.

* multi-users (several people have ability to use one 
  machine at different times)
  [was: multiple-users (several people can use machine at different times)]
* conncurrent users (several people can use one machine simultaneously)
  [was: multi-user (several people can use machine simultaneously)]
 
* customized applications to run specific tasks
  [was: customization of applications to run specific tasks]
  [was: applications (I need to run specific applications on my computer)

* uses (I need to use my computer for specific tasks.  Specific
  applications don't matter as long as they fill the need).

> * availability of a wide variety of apps (commercial, freeware?) 
>
> * having a graphical interface to applications and system
> * having a command-line interface to applications and system
>
> * intuitive user interface
> * consistent user interface (things behave the same way even comparing 
>   between two separate applications) 
> * consistent graphical and/or textual user interfaces, and the ability to
>   exploit both to the user's advantage
> * dumping error messages to a text file as well as to the screen
> * having a program which explains error messages

>what about intuitive error messages from the OS and applications from the
>beginning? Rather than an interpreter...

> * being able to access context-sensitive help information
> 
> * multiple-languages (support for several languages)
> * multi-language (support for several languages simultaneously)

* printed documentation that comes with the software
  [was: printed docs from distribution]
!* Documentation on the internet that can be downloaded and/or printed
!  [was: printed docs from the internet (and a directory of said docs)]
!* Availability of printed documentation/guides at book stores
!  [was:printed docs available at book stores]

!* Software tutorials that interactively teach you how to use your computer
!  and applications
!  [was: having the os send each new user an email containing 'how to use MAN,
!  APROPOS; where to find docs, how to read docs etc.']

* support, software vendor
* support, computer vendor
* support, hardware vendor
  [was: support, vendor [what is a 'vendor' for an end-user, anyway?] ]
!* accessability of support over the Internet
!  [was: accessability of support over the Internet or www]

!* software brand reputation (good or bad)
!* hardware brand reputation (good or bad)
!  [was: brand reputation (good or bad)]
  [was: corporate reputation]