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The next openSUSE Survey
(9 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Working on a first draft of questions for the next openSUSE survey. It’s been a while since we queried our users, and it’s about time we do it again.
A couple of challenges here:
- We’d like to know as much as possible about openSUSE users and contributors to best understand the community. This means asking quite a few questions.
- We want to keep the survey short so people don’t lose interest and stop before they’ve completed the survey. This means that we have to be choosy about the questions we ask, which slightly conflicts with the first goal.
- Need to make sure the questions and options are clear and cover the bases. Since most of the survey should be multiple choice, we need to have sane options.
The last survey had 27 questions. Some are obvious candidates to be dropped. For instance, the two questions about Novell products really aren’t germane to what we need to know for openSUSE and can be scuttled.
Suggestions on what we should (or shouldn’t) be asking?
Also wondering if we should have two surveys — a shorter survey for the larger openSUSE user base and a longer survey for the more active community. Thoughts?
IMO lets have only one , so as to focus and target best on the definite set of question(s).
Ask whether the users would like to contribute to official repository and not the Contrib one, which is not included by default and not integrated into oBS (so packagers have to use osc commandline tool and have no choice).
Ask about:
* new features users want to see in openSUSE;
* introducing, what already has been introduced in other distros (KMS, Plymouth and others);
* satisfaction openSUSE speed brings (does it exist or is rather not satisfaction).
And don’t ask about default DE choice – won’t make a difference and is a useless question ^^ .
I vote for 2 surveys, a short one and a longer one, for the more-in-depth-questions.
Questions could be:
* Why are you using openSuse?
* Where is openSuse better than $other OS?
* What do you do to promote the use of openSuse?
* Why aren’t you using openSuse?
* What Os are you using?
* Where is “your” OS better than openSuse?
I would focus on the non openSUSE users and the less active community.
From the active part we’re aware what they expect and in which direction they like to go. Or better: It’s possible to get this from the postings on the mailing lists.
But will people not using openSUSE notice the survey? I fear we’ll not be able to catch the attention of this most interesting group.
Therefore the remaining audience are the less active members.
The questions blau suggested look much ti general to me. With this kind of questions we’ll face the trouble how to extract a result from the very varying answers I expect.
What do we gain from the answer if we know people are using Microsoft Windows? Is this a news? Do we gain any benefit from it?
“Where is “your” OS better than openSuse?” turns it into the reight direction. This is like asking “What’s missing most?”.
If we like to ask to vote for new features we have at least to offer a direction like “Mobile devices”, “power save”, usebilty of YaST, interdependent YaST service configuration (e.g. DHCP, DNS, LDAP, Samba YaST modules working well together).
Why not one survey that has two sections, first basic questions for users and a second section with more in-depth questions and questions for contributers?
At the end of the first section give the user the choice to submit answers and leave or submit answers to the first section continue on to the second section.
IMHO, the past surveys covered questions about stability, flexibility, security, the motivation, and many others. All good points and important, but I would like to see more questions about documentation.
Well, we all know documentation is useful and important. Some examples (ok, but better phrased):
* How do you rate the official documentation?
* Which topic would you like to see in the official documentation?
* Would you like to see the manuals more in a book type or as small quick starts?
* Which format(s) do you use? [ ] PDF, [ ] HTML, [ ] EPUB
* How would you rate the layout of the documentation?
About the 2 surveys: I’m more in favor of one survey, don’t ask my why. Just my feelings.
@Thomas Isn’t the purpose of surveys to ask why?
OK – thanks for the feedback!
@Stan that’s also an option. Thanks.
@Livio – thanks for the suggestions.
I’d ask a few questions along this line:
What should openSUSE add or change among:
(a) Installation (e.g., partitioning)
(b) Getting Started Help (how about links to YouTube videos?)
(c) Default settings (e.g., screen/system fonts)
(d) Choice of browser?
(e) Encouraging forum participation
(f) Marketing (or promoting) openSUSE among your friends.
It doesn’t really make sense, but it’s a few ideas. As for (f), as more people use openSUSE, they are impressed with its attention to detail.
1. The most difficult thing is to fix problems for any new user, so I would ask questions such as
a) What did you find difficult in using OpenSUSE?
This will allow better install help pages. To be read before using!
One thing much needed is ability to remove a desktop (E.g KDE automatically after you have downloaded another (Gnome) and this question about changing desktops is important.
b) Where you able to change desktops?
with difficulty? without difficulty?
c) Did you have difficulty upgrading SUSE?
d) Did you have to do anew install to fix a broken upgrading.?
It doesn’t really make sense, but it’s a few ideas. As for (f), as more people use openSUSE, they are impressed with its attention to detail.
watch greek
Ask whether users would want a easy way to install Proprietary Codecs.