On Dec 23, 2009, at 12:22 PM, Joshua A. Andler wrote:
Not a bad idea in general, however we would need to create a survey to achieve this. I don't think users of inkscapeforum alone will represent a wide enough group of different types of users. So, perhaps we create an online survey and announce on the forums, the user-list, deviantart, twitter, and our website.
The question then becomes, what if people overwhelmingly respond?
What generally happens in these cases is that you don't get much useful information. That is, the online poll tends to get misinformation and more of what people think the poller wants to hear.
Remember, users will lie. Well, rather they will say what they think is *how* to get what they want, not the *why* of what they're actually trying to get.
As Mark Shuttleworth recently pointed out, you need to have users sit down, then STFU http://humanfactorsblog.org/2009/09/25/stfu-usability-protocol/
On the other hand, observing users "in the wild" at trade shows or conventions is a good opportunity to conduct such surveying (and, yes, I've confirmed this with many usability professionals)