Re: SEUL: draft survey: v.0.001

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

O btw, it looks like the 'lust' acronym has already been taken:
http://www.ch4549.org/lust/
:)

In message <358DBE1B.C19522DA@ix.netcom.com>, kmself@ix.netcom.com writes:
>> 1. I consider myself to be a [exclusive: dos, win31, win95, winnt, mac,
>> os/2, linux, other unix, other] user.
>
>Change: "My primary OS is" or "I consider myself to be primarily a ___
>user".

Good point. I prefer the latter. (The difference is "what os the machine
has currently" compared to "what os the person is most comfortable with
and used to".

>> 2. I have used this operating system for how long? [exclusive: <1month,
>> <6months, <1year, >1year]
>
>Scale:  < 6 mos, 6 mos < 1 yr, 1 yr < 5 yr, 5 yr < 10 yr, 10 yr +

We kind of have a problem here. Nobody on the linux side gets to check
the 10+ button. We're going to have to be careful about interpreting
results.

>...some users, especially very long term, will have very strong biases. 
>The range above will equate roughly to "beginner", "intermediate",
>"advanced", "expert", "I wrote it" categories.  Do we add a "My name is
>Linux, Bill, Steve, Dennis" category? <g>
> 
>> 3. I have experience with the following operating systems: [checkany:
>> dos, win31, win95, winnt, mac, os/2, linux, other unix]
>
>Would be good to ask location for both of main/secondary:
>
>I use this OS at: home, office, school, other (pick multiple)

also good
 
>> I'd like to ask question 2 about all operating systems they have
>> experience with. But I don't want to get too bulky.

Is consensus that we should try to figure out how to ask for answers to
these for every OS that they have experience with, or am I alone in this?
 
>> section: user profile
>> 
>> 1. name (optional): string
>> 2. email address (optional): string
>> 3. age: exclusive: [under 10, 10-15, 15-18, 18-21, 21-25, 25-35, >35]
>>   (these good?)
>
>Life doesn't end at 35 ;-) (I've got a few years to go even if it does,
>but I'm starting to get edgy about it....)  Why go so young?
>
>How about: < 10, 10 - 19, 20 - 29, 30 - 39, 40 - 49, 50 - 59, 60 - 69,
>70+.
>...unless you've got specific interests in particular age ranges.  I
>might grant you splitting < 10, 10-14, 15-19.

I have the impression that most of our users center around 20ish, meaning
10-15, 16-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+ sounds about
right. I am totally confused in that impression?

>> 4. profession: exclusive: (options?)
>
>Do you want to ask "profession" or "position" or "industry"?  There are
>some standard classification schemes, you might want to check US Census
>bureau.  When asked, "profession" is usually a fill-in-the-blank type
>response.

Oo. 'Position' might allow us to distinguish the decision-makers from the
non-decision-makers. But then again, probably not (but it's a neat thought).

>General categories -- some of these are terms we *don't* want to use,
>but as ideas:
> - Unemployed/not working
> - Retired
> - Student
> - Home Maker
> - Laborer
> - Skilled laborer (incl. factory) ?
what's the difference between these two? we should be clearer here.
> - Journeyman (carpenter, plumber, glazier)
> - General office
secretary? what is this?
> - Business Professional
> - Computer professional (operator, analyst, programmer, sysop)
> - Business management
> - Computing management

should we divide these up further? the goal of the user profile
section is to figure out what sort of person is answering the rest of
the survey, so we can know how to interpret their answers. it's very
relevant if it's a sysadmin or a grunt programmer filling out the survey.

> - Business executive
> - Computer executive (CFO)
> - "Content provider" (we don't want to use this term -- artist, writer,
>other creative professional)
'liberal arts' if we ask it in terms of education rather than profession.
perhaps we should ask both, given that most liberal arts people aren't doing
liberal arts right now...(i'm sure there are other examples of that)
> - Professional (doctor, lawyer, veterinarian, etc.)
>
>
>> 5. income (optional): exclusive: <$10k, 10k-20k, 20k-30k, 30k-50k, 50k-100k,
> >100k
>>   (should we do 'household income'? what's standard here?)
>>   (should we care that we're being US-centric?)
>
>I'd do "household", in broad ranges.  < 20, 20 - 59, 60 - 119, 120+ 
>Basically: poverty (or starving student), lower middle, middle, made
>it.  Any measure has to be denominated in some currency.  Simply specify
>US dollars or equivalent.

makes sense. it's also a 4-choice answer, which is what we're trying to
use when we can.

>> 6. education level, and specialization (if applicable)
>
>Some secondary, secondary, some college/2 year college, baccelaureate,
>advanced degree, technical training, professional degree.

what's the comparison between advanced degree (presumably that's a Master's)
and 'technical training'?

>> 7. missing anything?
>
>Yes.

uh, thanks. ;)
 
>How about, general areas, fill in later:
>
> - General use:
>   I use my computer for: games, internet/email, schoolwork, small/home
>office (SOHO), office applications, dedicated/business systems,
>development.

graphics, number crunching/computational algebra, databases are other
things to consider (stolen from the german survey). also, "computer(s)"
is more appropriate.

It would be nice to figure out which OS they used for each thing they
did. I don't see an elegant way of doing that yet, though.

> - Rank the following in terms of importance (low, moderately low,
>moderately high, high):

We might need to provide something that will help guide them to know
exactly what we're asking, else we risk being ambiguous. importance to
productivity? importance to personal happiness? general impression of
what the user thinks bill gates deems important? (maybe i'm being
paranoid)
But I can't come up with a good rewording for it. I just know that
at each question, I would ask myself "what do they mean 'important'?"
Something more concrete would help me out there.
I wonder if it would be useful to split between "how crucial is it to"
and "how useful would it be to". Most required features can be kludged
into existence, but there are easy ways to kludge them and hard ways.
 
>   - local networking (connecting to other computers at my office, home,
>or other location).
>   - wide area networking (connecting two or more locations)

are there any examples of this besides businesses creating wan-company-
networks? I think we might be self-selecting the answerers of this
question. (But then, we might surprise ourselves. And it could
also be valuable to actually document that assumption that only
businesses care about this is correct.)

>   - internet connection (direct or dial-up internet connection)
>   - privacy (ability to keep other users from reading my files)
>   - security (ability to prevent unauthorized people from using my
>system(s).
>   - stability (computer and applications run without crashing or
>requiring restart)
>   - multi-user (several people can use machine, possibly
>simultaneously)

these should be separate questions. having the computer keep separate
information about the different people that use the machine is very
different from letting multiple people do stuff at the same time.
("How can that work? I only have one keyboard.....")

>   - 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).
>   - backups, administration

easy to use, powerful, fast, documented...

>   - adding/removing software

in a clean and elegant way. everybody has a cp and an rm...

>   - upgrades

easy to get upgrades, or easy to apply upgrades...(is price an
issue here too?)

>   - compatibility with existing systems
>   - compatibility with prior versions
>   - ease of use (this *MUST* be split up into "what constitutes EOU"
>elements).

this is, unfortunately, not my specialty. i'll try to throw this
question to a couple of graphics friends of mine.

>   - GUI

spell it out, graphical user interface (see below)

>   - CLI (command line)

This is a good question to ask, but nobody knows that acronym. Asking
"command line interface" directly is probably better.

>   - documentation

similar to support, is there a difference between delivered (printed)
documentation and obtainable (electronic) documentation? are drivers
a separate category?

>   - support, vendor
>   - support, internet
>   - source code (probably not a big one, but it would be interesting to
>ask)
>   - cost

is it relevant if the business pays for it rather than the user?
or is this going to be expressed by just asking about cost?

>   - corporate reputation (vague -- good or bad reputation is
>important.  may not want to ask)

I'd like to ask it. We could do two separate questions, how important
is good corporate reputation in your decision to use an OS, how
important is bad corporate reputation in your decision to not use an
OS. But wait -- what is debian's "corporate reputation"? Is there
a broader wording here that doesn't confuse people?

>Oh, hell.  I'm all out of ideas.  Feel free to add.

These are some good ideas. They should be integrated with the
current draft, which pete has put online (tho it's currently the same 
as the one he posted here last week). I figure the thing to do is to
throw out ideas for a couple days, then refine them into presentable
ideas, then finally refine them into the actual words we're going to use.

final thoughts:
"is it important to support internationalization?"
along that line, we might ask for country in the user profile section.

Also, consider OCR support (software), as well as speech recognition and
other specialty applications...
 
--Roger