RE: [libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging users: initial results of the survey

For what it's worth...  I'm just a casual user of LO.  It was installed on
my new computer when I bought it a year and a half ago.  I got on this list
because the spell checker wouldn't work.  I've remained here because a) I
sometimes learn stuff and b) I like it when you guys disagree with one an
other (or someone) and have arguments.  It's a little bit of diversion for
an old man.  And I enjoy Anne Ology's occasional remarks too :-)

Anyway, I started taking the survey but couldn't finish it because as others
have said it seemed to be somehow steering me.  It didn't have the check
boxes I wanted!!!


-----Original Message-----
From: Charles-H. Schulz [mailto:charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org] 
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 4:09 PM
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging users: initial results of the
survey

Hello Ken,


Ken Springer <snowshed1@q.com> a écrit :
> Hi, Charles,
>
> On 11/11/13 4:19 AM, Charles-H. Schulz wrote:
> > Hello Alex,
> >
> > Le Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:05:46 +0100,
> > Alex Thurgood <alex.thurgood@gmail.com> a écrit :
> >
> > > Le 10/11/2013 19:46, Charles-H. Schulz a écrit :
> > >
> > > Hi Charles,
> > >
> > > Whilst I appreciate the effort in designing such a survey and the
> > > objective behind it, I too, must admit that the survey was not
> worded
> > > in a way in which I felt comfortable responding. Indeed, it seemed
> to
> > > be distinctly biased towards getting the participants to answer in a
> > > given direction.
> >
> > Next time I'm  sure you can join us in the weeks during which we
> > discussed the survey on the marketing and project's list :-)
>
> I hope you are making a list of the concerns voiced in this thread, and
>
> the other thread about the survey.  That will give you additional
> points 
> to look at for the next survey.

Ken, I am not only making a list, I am reading this thread and the other one
about LibreOffice vs. MSO with great attention.  Lots of stuff to digest but
lots of things to say from my side as well.


> > > Additionally, I would question the statistical relevance of 600
> > > responses, when the project is alleged to have tens/hundreds of
> > > thousands of users. If only 600 hundred people took the time to
> > > respond, what does this say about :
> > >
> > > - penetration of the product;
> >
> > I honestly would not  think there's relevant data for this in the
> > survey and from the respondents.
> >
> > > - reach of the survey;
> >
> > Good question with no easy answer. The survey was localized in 5
> > languages aside English. The link was posted here and on the several
> > other users mailing lists. The word was spread on the Facebook
> > LibreOffice page and Google+ and to a lesser extent on Twitter.
> >
> > Once I've said this I guess I didn't say much. Here are two
> additional
> > facts:
> > - the survey was not translated (and not propagated) to three
> countries
> >    where we know we have an active community and anywhere between a
> non
> >    trivial number of users up to a large number of them: Russia,
> Japan,
> >    Brazil. Judging by the survey results, it would seem that their
> >    impact has been minimal or virtually non-existent. So the survey
> >    reached out to some categories of users, but not all of them. I'd
> be
> >    however confident in stating that the users that responded are
> >    representative of the LibreOffice users in general.
>
> Let's work with Alex's comment there were 600 responses to the survey. 
> You often read how LO has thousands and thousands of users.  Just to 
> make it simple, let's say there's 100,000 users.  That's probably 
> miniscule to MSO and possibly even WordPerfect.
>
> That means, at best you got the opinions of .6% of the users. 
> Personally, I would never consider that to be representative of the
> user 
> base, especially when you noted in the next paragraph of the limitation
>
> of the survey's distribution.  I would seriously consider junking this 
> survey's results, using it as a learning experience, and doing a better
>
> survey.
>
> Really, all you have is the opinions of the users of the mailing list, 
> not users in general.

You are right on your last statement however I still maintain that this
fraction of users which is by the way even smaller than 0.6% is
representative of the users in that the respondents have concerned that are
similar to everyone else.

One other point on the survey is that it did not pop out from my head. It
was designed over the course of over a week by a team of contributors. And
this team was open to anyone (hence my remark to Alex).

> > - the survey could have had a bigger and much deeper outreach if  it
> >    had been pushed directly to the users, say at the installation
> phase
> >    or even through a mechanism allowing users to respond to it via
> the
> >    StartCenter. That was obviously not the case, so in the end we
> >    reached out the users who are on the project's mailing list and
> >    connected to us through our social networks. This leaves out
> plenty
> >    of users irrespective of their language.
> >
> >
> > > - design of the survey;
> >
> > What would you like to know? The survey was designed in order to be
> > progressive in its questioning as should be all the surveys. Beyond
> > that, don't look too much into survey methodologies, I'm not sure
> they
> > are that sophisticated, unless of course you would like to get a
> > particular answer in advance, and that's precisely what  we wanted to
> > avoid.
>
> As I and someone else pointed out, you limited the range of the 
> responses.  When you do that, you automatically color/bias the results 
> of any survey.  Easy to correlate the data received, but no guarantee
> of 
> accuracy.  Which is why, so often, election results don't match the 
> polls and surveys.   :-)

Good point here too. I guess I will answer on the other thread but please
always keep in mind that most of us are volunteers and that this is a FOSS
project. It means among other things that we do not work like a company nor
sell a product but also that we tend to be short handed when it comes to
resources at least compared to Microsoft :-)

Best,

Charles. 

> > > - length and time for which the survey ran ?
> >
> > The survey  started on the 31st of October and expired yesterday.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Charles.
> >
> >
> > > Alex

-- 
Envoyé de mon téléphone avec Kaiten Mail. Excusez la brièveté.

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