0x011->1x012 Change summary

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

For your viewing pleasure, here's the link:

     http://www.seul.org/research/survey.html

Again, sorry for the delay. Here we are...

1- Merged Win 95/98 and Mac OS'

> age - At one time I thought we had a set of age ranges.
     I'm thinking along the lines of...

< 13 years
13-17 years
18-22 years
22-30 years
30-38 years
39-45 years
46-55 years
56-65 years
> 65 years
     Are these too many categories? [Not yet added]

> profession - Do you want me to work up a set?
     That would be great!

> income - Fill-in or ranges?
     I think ranges would be more appropriate here.

I suggest keeping these as they are useful marketing info - the more
good marketing info we can provide, the more likely other developers
(even commercial ones) will take linux more seriously as a development
platform.
     While on the subject, should we perhaps add a question about the
highest level of education completed (or presently being worked on)?

>What do you do - Is this a reword of profession, a fill-in or what
>                do you do with your computer.

2- How much do you make - Reword of income. Fill-in or ranges
     Waiting for ranges. This is difficult as this question is
implicitly biased towards $USD. Is there a possibility that the ranges
for this question could be changed from one currency to another to
maintain the same ranges, but not force the user to convert their
currency to a common currency for the purposes of comparison (ie,
conversion done by survey mechanism based on country or currency, not by
respondant)?

2- What part do you play in purchasing decisions - Fill-in or reword
                to yes/no.

SUGGEST: What part do you play in purchasing decisions?
    No influence
    Suggests potential purchases
    Researches potential purchases
    Reponsable for purchases [Added to 0x012]

> Gender Race - optional?
     I can see how gender might be interesting to have ... I'm not sure
how race would figure in this, though, given that this survey will be
available internationally. It might make more sense to break down by
country.

> Country - These three are necessary if you're concerned with
>  distribution.
     Agreed. It would also be nice to break down responses by country.
The prospect of survey translation into other languages should then be
considered at some point to make it easier to get more respondants.
Also, if the survey is structured this way (several translations of the
same questions), and we can track which language is chosen by the user
for the survey, we can get a good feel for what languages are good
candiates for i18n (internationalization: i, then 18 letters, then n) of
the OS and software. I18n efforts are already being made in many
software development activities (ie. Majordomo 2), so it makes sense
that it should also already exist at the OS level.
     One thing that strikes me, though, is that a consistant set of
error numbers should exist to facilitate troubleshooting. If I don't
know mandarin, for instance, a mandarin speaker with an imperfect grasp
of english asking for help can point me to the specific error and
context, chances are I can give better advice to resolve the problem. In
this way, not only do we keep the advantages of i18n, we also lose some
of the disadvantages of i18n - namely the diffculty of translating
problems. This has the nice advantage of developing the user base in
other languages without preventing the users in other languages from
taking advantage of the expertise in other languages, even if they
cannot completely express themselves. Can somebody tell me if this
already exists?
     This question could also be used to help decide the currency
denomination to present to the user when s/he fills out the 'earnings'
section.

> Is your house/dwelling urban/rural  - What is it that we are trying
>    to find out. Is it where is the computer you're talking about
>    located? What about laptop?
     Hmmm... maybe this question points to the availability of OS
support ... chances are it's easier to find someone familiar with linux
in an urban area than it is in a rural one?

     Cheers,

     Pete


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