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Re: 0x012 -> 0x013 change summary
Hi, I'm still alive. Been trying to catch up on some of the mail....
Pete St. Onge wrote:
>
> For your viewing pleasure, here's the link:
>
> http://www.seul.org/research/survey.html
>
> Employment sector: there was a lot of email about this; I tried to bring
> this together as best I could, though it still needs work.
>
> As Karsen said,
> |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.
> This may be difficult, and I'm not sure about the 'or equivalent'
> part as I wrote earlier.
You don't worry about it ("or equivalent"). The response is "household
income, $US, converted if in foreign denomination". The respondant is
responsible for coming up with the equivalence. You add a checkbox item
for non-US denomination, but I don't think it tells us anything that
country wouldn't (non-US country assumes non- $US compensation).
I don't know if I missed earlier discussion, but it might help to cut
through some of the cruft on software issues by asking what tasks the
person typical works with:
- Words -- Wordprocessing, email
- Images -- Graphics, photography, art
- Sounds -- Music, voice, ???
- Data -- Databases, analysis, business data, mailing lists, market
research, spreadsheets
- Communications -- Internet, email, telephony, videoconference
- Games -- you know, fun stuff.
...this is an outgrowth of some thoughts I had a ways back on what
computers are all about. At the time, it seemed that is was basically
words, pictures, sounds, and data, and the ability to modify, transport,
interact with, and organize them, were the atomic building blocks of
computing applications. It seemed like an epiphany at the time (one of
the obvious ones, mind you), I'm not sure it's particularly useful, but
I thought I'd share it. Programming probably wants to fit in somewhere
too....
Both the networking and sys admin sections seem longer than desireable.
I haven't looked closely to see what I'd keep or cut, but....
Could we add language to the survey defining or providing examples of
what we mean by "specialty user". I think *we* know, but the respondant
may not.
WRT Laptops -- this was suggested by me (among others), as it leads to
questions concerning portability, dockability, power management, and
remote application, which are divorced from most other concerns.
Laptops isn't a seperate class, it is an addendum to a class. Current
treatment is good.
WRT user types. My original thinking was that one category was going to
drive purchase decisions for a particular machine or set of machines.
If this is the case, then the driving concerns *guiding a purchase
decision* for one or more machines is the classification to be used.
I'm no longer as convinced that this is the case, as a SOHO/Developer
mix might require advanced development support and speed (for
development) as well as a highly integrated user environment and office
applications (for the SOHO side). One use isn't technically more
demanding than the other in all dimensions. Still, I feel the thrust of
this question is to find out what use figured most prominantly in
deciding what to buy, and I think the wording of the question ought to
reflect this. I propose:
Which of the following best describes the reason you purchased the
system(s) you are referring to in this questionnaire?
Followed by:
Do you use a laptop?
Overall Organization:
---------------------
Bob (eamorical@aol.com) raises some very good points on a mission
statement and organization of survey questions. I think the survey
would benefit from fewer top-level categories, and much simplification
of the technical areas. It would also help to have a clear guideline
for considering any proposed question. We basically have two types of
questions -- demographic and problem domain (describing Linux wants). A
question should answer one of the following needs:
- What does this tell us about the respondant?
- How can Linux be improved by the responses to this question?
For organization:
I suggest five top-level categories: Demographics, Hardware, Software,
Support, and Technical Requirements. Less is more.
Within the categories, as far as is appropriate, questions should be
ordered from least technical to most. This will make cutting the overly
technical questions easier ("everything after this line goes"). For
hardware and software, I'm suggesting two lines of inquiry be followed:
- Specificity -- addresses how discriminating a user is that a
requirement be met -- some people will require that application X or
device Y be supported, others only that a function be provided and some
communications or file standard be provided or met.
- Type -- specific hardware or software functions which must be met.
Demographics
- Age, Income, Country, Urban/Rural, Children, OS/Computer Experience
- Current satisfaction ("Section C" in 0x012 )
- Intented Use (SOHO,...)
Hardware
- Specificity -- specific models, specific vendors, specific
protocol (ISA/SCSI/???)
- Type -- HD, FD, CD-ROM, modem, ISDN modem, network cards, printer,
monitor, , backup (tape, WORM, DLT, ...), speaker, laptop stuff
(monitor, docking, removable, PCMCIA), scanner, audio input, video
input,....
- Setup & drivers -- PnP, manual config, mfgr driver support, 3rd
party paid drivers (I'm thinking OSS sound for Linux), ???
Software
- Specificity -- Specific releases of products, specific products,
specific vendors, compatible standard(s), specific application
areas...
- Application area -- Office suite, games, server (mail, web, print,
file, DBMS), specialized (music, photo, film, ??), data
analysis
- Modifiability -- no macro/scripting, macro/scripting language,
modifiable SW, free/open source software.
- Success factors: stability, scalability, market acceptance,
brand name, open source, ...
Support
- Online/phone technical support
- Documentation
Technical Requirements
- User Interface -- CLI, GUI, standards (Mac, WinAPI, ...)
- Networking -- Telephony, Internet
- Multimedia
- Administration -- Security, backups, stability, encryption upgrades,
installation, maintenance (virus, defrag, ??), resource monitoring
- Compatibility/Interoperability
- User support -- multiple users, security,
- Emerging technology
- Cost
Rank in order of importance:
- Hardware cost/upgrades
- Software cost/Upgrades
(does this really make sense? wouldn't "total cost" be a better
ballpark?
(I might phrase this along the lines of "What percent of purchase
price
(do you plan to spend per year on.... -software -hardware
-maintenance
( -service". The question should be clarified, or dropped.
Cheers.
--
Karsten M. Self (kmself@ix.netcom.com)
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Welchen Teil von "Gestalt" verstehen Sie nicht?
web: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
SAS/Linux: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/SAS/SAS4Linux.html
12:11am up 85 days, 21:40, 2 users, load average: 1.59, 1.37, 1.18