New User Survey idea for ocPortal staff to consider.

I has been my contention that the best odds of new ocPortal conversions will be users with some basic understanding of a CMS or higher. I have an idea on how we can get some demographics to work on. Perhaps ocPortal Staff can implement a very simple short survey that is pushed to users Visiting (especially on registrations and downloads but perhaps just simply arriving should be considered too) to ask what experience/skill levels they have. This could further be supplemented with a poll or survey from current users and/or (registered but disappeared users) to help us build some stats.

This way we can see what types of users even find ocPortal in the first place. Who is getting excited but quitting before long etc and maybe even what makes the troopers stay?

This is actually very tricky. There is a very strong correlation between ability, and general engagement.

In other words, the kinds of people who fill in surveys are usually the more knowledgeable people who engage fully with all the tasks they perform.

Similarly, the people who post on the forum, or make reviews, or really do any kind of engagement, tend to be the more able user.

There are far more sites set up than there are users active on the forum, and far far more ocPortal downloads. The people we don't see, we could call them the "silent majority".

To get a proper view we'd need to do what marketers tend to do – give a prize draw for answering or something similar. These incentives tend to cut across levels of apathy to get a broader range of feedback. I don't really want to offer a prize or run a whole marketing campaign right now though .

We do run a survey for new signups (people get a mailing after joining the newsletter, asking them to fill in the survey). They're invited to give feedback on ocPortal and their aims, i.e. general stuff to help us assess what's going on/wrong.

Well, any useful information ocProducts has available might be useful. But I can't reconcile the cries of "git 'er done' with the amount of delay a useful survey would involve. Basically, a one-week survey would nab only those of us who are on pretty much every day.

Bob

Well I was kindo think a Force users to respond type thing. In other words You can't Download without first answer 2 or 3 Questions or You can't register type thing. And yes numbers may be slightly askew given many factors but that doesn't mean we can't glean some useful information either. And time frame is not that huge a concern as it is going to take a lot longer to write a book than a week. Survey results aren't need to get started but can be used at a later date for planning or direction changes.

Believe me, if we were to force people to jump through hoops, I'd have an inbox full of insults the next day .

Chris Graham said

Believe me, if we were to force people to jump through hoops, I'd have an inbox full of insults the next day .

And we would need a minimum of two weeks to preferably a month of input to gather anything even remotely reflecting who is trying out ocPortal.

We relly don't have that kind of time, especially since this decision would directly impact what form the book takes.

Bob

Chris Graham said

Believe me, if we were to force people to jump through hoops, I'd have an inbox full of insults the next day .

If we can obtain some useful stats from the inbox full of insults, then I say let the hoop jumping begin!  

sholzy said

Chris Graham said

Believe me, if we were to force people to jump through hoops, I'd have an inbox full of insults the next day .

If we can obtain some useful stats from the inbox full of insults, then I say let the hoop jumping begin!  

I'm fine with the idea of a survey  (if we can convince Chris). But I then do not want to hear about not making progress and the need to speed things up.

Bob

BobS said

Chris Graham said

Believe me, if we were to force people to jump through hoops, I'd have an inbox full of insults the next day .

And we would need a minimum of two weeks to preferably a month of input to gather anything even remotely reflecting who is trying out ocPortal.

We relly don't have that kind of time, especially since this decision would directly impact what form the book takes.

Bob

Actually, making changes to the chapter layout, whether multiple skill level per chapter or the other way would be very easy to do late in the game.

I can see us having at least one month, maybe even two months, of data collection time before we would be out of time to use it. I don't see this book getting stitched together until September at the earliest.

You may be right about the insults Chris but I was thinking if it is Extremely short like Max of 3 or 4 Well chosen multiple choice type questions it may not annoy too many as it should only take a few seconds to respond and I am sure most wouldn't have too huge an issue especially if you apologize up front and explain that it is to better help you provide them with a better product.

sholzy said

. I don't see this book getting stitched together until September at the earliest.

Try January (but at our current rate definitely past September)

sholzy said

Actually, making changes to the chapter layout, whether multiple skill level per chapter or the other way would be very easy to do late in the game.

I can see us having at least one month, maybe even two months, of data collection time before we would be out of time to use it. I don't see this book getting stitched together until September at the earliest.

I actually agree with this. Once written, the text just needs to be flowed into whatever template we decide for the most part, with small adjustments made.

However, after a week of hearing how we were wasting too much time, I now find it hard to believe that some of the same people are no longer crying out that we move quickly.

But I am still convinced that a book that appeals to beginner's will help achieve the most and we can always extend that into another book(s) when the time comes.

Bob

Duck said

sholzy said

. I don't see this book getting stitched together until September at the earliest.

Try January (but at our current rate definitely past September)

The book's release is meant to coincide with the release of version 10 and will need to be updated for changes made in version 10. January is probably a realistic timeframe.

Bob

sholzy said

Chris Graham said

Believe me, if we were to force people to jump through hoops, I'd have an inbox full of insults the next day .

If we can obtain some useful stats from the inbox full of insults, then I say let the hoop jumping begin!  

Just be aware that with forced surveys, along with the inbox insults, the survey will contain an unknown percentage of garbage data, with people just clicking anything to get through.