'Re: URGENT: Questions for next monday for Njaard'

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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: URGENT: Questions for next monday for Njaard
From:       Jim Conner <jconner83 () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2001-08-22 7:44:34
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Very good points here!  I've never been to one of these types of functions, 
but I know that people want questionaires to be simple and quick to fill out. 
 If it is in essay format, they won't do it because they might not have time 
to see the booths they want to see.  Simple multiple choice, logical and 
short answer questions are the best.  We'll be lucky to get complete 
sentences for some of these.  I opened the .rtf file in Abiword 0.7.14(KWord 
1.0 wouldn't do it), and read through the questions.  I'm attaching an 
updated version of the file with my comments/corrections/additions.

Jim

On Tuesday August 21, 2001  1:16 pm, Jennifer E Jobst wrote:
> You're all probably sick of hearing me say this, but what are the goals of
> this questionnaire for LWE?  What *exactly* do we want to know about the
> people we're asking to fill this thing out, and more importantly, *how do
> we plan to use this information*?  Just asking people questions about their
> name, age, gender, what they use KDE for and what apps are their favorite,
> etc is great, this provides us with a general demographic of the KDE user
> base, but then what?  How are we planning to use this information to
> improve KDE?
>
> I'm sorry, I don't mean to put a damper on things.  I'm really excited
> about having a "captive" audience to fill out our questionnaire.  But when
> the time comes to compile all this information, I'm really concerned that
> we don't know what we're going to get out of it, or how we're going to use
> that information. However, we really need to figure this out *before* we
> develop the questionnaire.
>
> So, having said all that, I decided to take a walk and ponder life, the
> universe, and Everything.  Please note that the following are only my
> thoughts and opinions, and are in no way the Gospel Truth (or any other
> kind of truth for that matter).
>
> * At LWE, we're not guaranteed that *only* KDE users are going to answer
> our questionnaire.  I mean, what if we have a Gnome user or two who tried
> KDE and decided they didn't like it?  From a usability standpoint, I wanna
> know *why* they didn't like it.  So I want them to answer our questionnaire
> as well.  Plus, maybe all the folks who use Gnome are newbies, whereas all
> the sysadmins use KDE.  Who knows?  Gnome users are valuable too!
>
> * The people who agree to answer our questionnaire may not be sitting in
> front of a computer (I dunno if we're gonna have paper copies or not, but
> it might be handy to have them).  Even if they are, it won't be configured
> like their home machine.  So they're going to be answering all these
> questions from memory.  Which means that we can't ask them anything too in
> depth, 'cause they won't remember.
>
> * The people who answer our questionnaire may not have much time on their
> hands.  Thus, a short multiple-choice questionnaire is more likely to be
> answered than one with a lot of blank spaces for them to write in their
> thoughts, opinions, and feelings.
>
> OK.  So, having taken a walk and figured this out, I also tried to figure
> out exactly what we want to get out of this study, and how we can use it.
> I agree with Matt's statement that we can use this study to figure out
> where (in a general sense) to concentrate our usability research efforts.
> We can also get a better feeling for who constitutes the user base, where
> and why they use Linux, KDE or Gnome, and what kind of user they consider
> themselves to be.  This information helps us form a clearer picture of who
> KDE is catering to (and more importantly, who it is *not* catering to, and
> therefore who we can make it better cater to), so that in later tests we'll
> know which groups to focus on.
>
> Thus, the goals of this study (as I see them) are as follows:
>
> * form a clearer picture of the KDE user base, as well as those who do not
> use KDE (this will be a reference for future testing)
> * determine which applications are most commonly used, and why (this will
> let us know where we need to focus our test efforts)
> * get a list of people who we can contact in the future for more usability
> testing questions
>
> Sooooo...  I've tried to make up a short questionnaire based on this.  It
> is by no means finished, and actually the email that Matt just sent out has
> a lot of other great questions.  Take it, leave it, fix it, whatever.
>
> A word about what I think we can reasonably expect to get out of users.  A
> usability test or study is so much more than a questionnaire.  It's about
> watching people do a specific task, or asking them to complete a specific
> task and then asking them questions about it.  It is much more specific
> than anything we will be able to do at LWE. Thus, I don't think we're going
> to end up getting a whole ton of stuff that is immediately directly
> applicable to usability.  What we *will* get is a better picture of who we
> are dealing with and what their general usage habits are.  We'll be able to
> look for trends like "all Red Hat users use Gnome" or "most sys admins
> don't use a graphical desktop".  Some of this leads directly to usability
> issues (*why* don't sys admins like graphical desktops, and what can we do
> to KDE to improve its appeal to this group), other issues are not always
> usability related (Red Hat users use Gnome b/c it's the default.  Ok, so
> then how do we make KDE more well-known?  Not an issue for us to deal
> with... that's the marketing department).
>
> Sorry guys, this was waaaay more long-winded than I had intended.  Oh well,
> I hope that at least some of this info is useful!
>
> -j
>
> (See attached file: Questionnaire.rtf)
>
> Jennifer E. Jobst
> Linux Information Development
> IBM Linux Technology Services
> (512) 838-8298, T/L 678-8298
>

-- 

  1:42am  up 29 days,  2:14,  2 users,  load average: 0.10, 0.08, 0.02
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Running Caldera eD2.4 - Linux - because life is too short for reboots...

["Questionnaire_1.1.rtf" (text/rtf)]

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0
{\fonttbl
{\f0\fnil\fcharset0\fprq0\fttruetype Arial;}
{\f1\fnil\fcharset0\fprq0\fttruetype Times New Roman;}}
{\colortbl
\red0\green0\blue0;}
\kerning0\cf0\viewkind1\paperw12240\paperh15840\margl1440\margr1440\widowctl
\sectd\sbknone\colsx360
\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Notes to self: All options should be in alphabetical \
order} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 *************************************}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Name:}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f1 City:\tab\tab\tab\tab State/Province:\tab\tab Country:}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Email:}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 May we contact you if we have further questions? \
\tab Yes\tab No} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Age:\tab  less than 20\tab 20-30\tab 30-40\tab \
40-50\tab 50-60\tab 60+} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Gender:\tab\tab Female\tab\tab Male}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Your job title:}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Give a brief description of what you *really* do:}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 How long have you been a Linux user?\tab not at \
all\tab less than 6 months\tab 6 months-1year\tab\tab 1-2yrs\tab\tab 2-5yrs\tab \
>5yrs} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Is Linux your primary operating system?\tab\tab \
Yes\tab\tab No (if no, then please list primary OS)________________} \
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1 \par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 How would you describe \
yourself as a Linux user?} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Novice \tab\tab Intermediate\tab\tab \
Advanced\tab\tab Net/Sys Admin} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 (we should come up with short descriptions for each \
of these)} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 How did you get into Linux?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Friend showed me}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Self interest}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Forced to at work/school/home(circle one)}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Disenchanted by other OSes}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Curious about free UNIX}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Do you use Linux:\tab Not at all\tab At home\tab At \
work\tab\tab Both} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 What Linux distribution do you use?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Caldera\tab\tab Mandrake\tab Debian\tab\tab \
Slackware\tab SuSE\tab\tab Turbo\tab\tab RedHat\tab\tab Other (please specify)} \
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1 \par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Do you work mostly \
in:\tab\tab console mode\tab\tab KDE\tab\tab Gnome\tab\tab Other XWindow Manager \
(please specify)} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Any particular reason?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 What is your web browser of choice?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Mozilla\tab\tab Opera\tab\tab Konquerer\tab \
Netscape\tab Lynx\tab\tab Links\tab\tab Other (please specify)} \
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1 \par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Is there a particular \
reason?} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 What is your email application of choice?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Pine\tab\tab Kmail\tab\tab Elm\tab\tab \
Mutt\tab\tab Netscape\tab Other (please specify)} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 Is there a particualr reason?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20 What is your favorite office tool?}
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1{\f0\fs20\tab Koffice\tab\tab StarOffice\tab Applixware\tab \
AbiSuite\tab Other (please specify)} \par\pard\sl240\slmult1
\par\pard\sl240\slmult1}

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