Re: Initial survey discussions - organization

["Pete St. Onge" <pete_st_onge@iname.com>]

> So, actually in my opinion we needed knowledge, what people do with their
> computers and what they wanted to do. Better not to ask what the people
> want in an OS nut what they want in an hd... For example this old macOS
> here is OK as long as it doesn't crash and I'm *able to switch easily
> between web-browser, wordprocessor, e-mail etc*... the OS is OK as long as
> you don't notice it at all!?
     I totally agree, though I fear we would be getting into a
conundrum: we want to get a really good idea of what the various users
want, but we want to keep the questions to a minimum. I checked kmself's
SAS survey, and it didn't seem to be too long to me. I fear that it
might be perhaps too short for the info we want to collect, however,
given the complexity of the applications and our goals.
     What we might do is to give the user a choice of the survey to fill
out, say a common section to get the users to describe themselves,
machine information, etc. Then they could choose which other survey(s)
they would fill out - user interface, word processor, spreadsheet,
database, etc. 
     If the info from the first section (self-description) could be
saved as state data (cookie - with appropriate explanation to ensure
that they accept the cookie), this person could come back at some other
time and fill out other survey sections (without having to give the
redundant), and we can keep track of who does what. This would also
allow us to get as much info as possible about a specific area without
having users give up because they don't see the end of the survey.

     Just a thought.

     Pete

-- 
Pete St. Onge - McGill U.  Limnology - Fun with Ropes & Buckets
pete_st_onge@iname.com         http://wwp.mirabilis.com/4322052