82 Why such a small range of questions

Good idea, and ALA is a good place to do this survey. But I think you need to improve the way the survey adapts itself to the respondent, and further consider all the different types of people who might answer the survey. I got several questions which your survey shouldn’t have asked me, considering my earlier answers.

A bit more on non-business aspects of the profession would be useful too. Your say the survey is supposed to be about the business side, but why not also make it about the technical side, and about social aspects? For example, if you asked more technical questions about things like standards or programming languages, we could look for correlation between income and standards-compliance, or between favoured languages and career intentions, or whatever.

I understand that you want to keep the survey short so that more people respond, but the problem of attention span should be addressed the survey’s dynamism — it could be possible for the respondent to opt out of certain sets of questions if they can’t be bothered with them, or for your software to make an informed guess about what level of detail they’re likely to be able/willing to answer.

For example, certain groups of people (like standards enthusiasts) would be very happy to spend half an hour answering detailed questions. So you could ask, “To what extent do you care about web standards?”, and then if they express a strong interest, you know you can get away with asking detailed questions like “Do you think mark-up validity matters?”

OK, most analysis of this data won’t concern technicalities like that. But a lot of the analysis will relate to only small groups of respondents, and not to the entire dataset. E.g. we might want to compare the average income of freelance PHP developers with that of salaried PHP developers (in which case we’d obviously only look at surveys that had been answered by PHP developers), or see if people with a particular speciality (AJAX, Flash, database design) tend to have particular views on the social relevance of the internet, or on professionalism, or…

This post is getting very long. My basic point is that if you’re going to do a big survey like this, you might as well cover social and technical aspects as well, and that wouldn’t necessarily put people off. And if you’re getting 500 responses an hour, you can afford to lose a few.

posted at 03:25 am on April 29, 2007 by Den Bosch

83 Untitled

Somewhere, Amber Simmons wrote “Lots of hostile responses to the survey, and even more random grandstanding which I thought was…weird, but whatever. I look forward to the results.”

I agree, and me too.

After browsing through the comments, I am stunned at the amount of complaining about the questions (as opposed to feedback). Particularly for a FIRST annual survey.

I’m a chemist from the mid-western U.S. whose experience in web design is posting technical information for my employer and putting up my personal website. I have never made a dime doing it. I get 18 days vacation and a smattering of national holidays, but no bank holidays since I am not in that business. I had no trouble answering any of the survey’s questions and was able to complete it in about 10 minutes. I find it disturbing that so many people who are ostensibly creative designers have trouble finding plausible ways to answer basic questions. Especially making the connection that “other” can mean “none of the above”.

Cheers,

Peter

posted at 06:02 am on April 29, 2007 by Peter Hyde-Smith

84 Pretty easy

The survey was pretty easy to take. There were a few times I felt like nothing really applied, or I would have like to explain myself, but only one time I didn’t pick at least one of the options. Maybe more “other,” “n/a” or “don’t know” options for us perfectionists that don’t like to pick a choice that isn’t 100% accurate. :-)

posted at 10:05 pm on April 30, 2007 by Chris Samoiloff

85 Suggestion: edit the ranges

I would suggest that any list of ranges NOT include the same number in more than one range. For instance, on hours worked per week, don’t make the top range number of one range be the same as the bottom number of another range. Instead of 30-40 hours a week and 40-50 hours, make ranges like 30-39, 40-49 so someone at 40 hours a week doesn’t have to decide which button to select. Same with incomes, etc.

posted at 07:03 pm on May 1, 2007 by Angela French

86 wow....

This so great! I love comments. All these people complaining about ids and i don`t know which button to click…

“But more complaints may await us in the comments fields of the survey itself.”

After looking at these comments I am very sorry about my comment in the comments fields of the survey itself. It was not about ids and geography issues though. As always alistapart did hit some kind of nerve (is this the right idiom?). I am not sure if this is about the topic or about online surveys in general.

So what made me complaining (I would like to say feddbacking :-))? I would have loved to be asked some other kinds of questions like: How do you cope with the ever changing demands. Maybe something about work-life balance? How many hours do you spend unpaid in front of your computer (or on a train) gathering information or solving problems just because you are interested and love what you are doing? Are you getting trouble with your boyfriend, wife, children, partner because you are spending to much time on your job? Do you sometimes work unpaid doing stuff you think is great or for people you like? Do you share your knowledge on forums and blogs. Are you giving in to clients who don`t know anything about web standards and stuff. Are your clients as bad as mine? Sorry about that last bit. How important is money for you when you are considering a job?

These are things i would like to know? But they a really hard to fit in a survey aren`t they?

I will spread the news about this survey i think it is a start and as we all know the next one will be even better…

posted at 10:03 am on May 2, 2007 by Heike Theis

87 Some Suggestions

I think this survey is a great idea, good work ALA!

I agree with previous posts about the survey being US centric, I think next time using slightly more generic options in the education category and allowing people to select their country would help. I also thought it would be more useful (and culturally sensitive) to include more options in the “ethnicity” question, and add a further question asking something like “Do you consider yourself as belonging to an ethnic minority in your country” as that seems to be what the question is really getting at.

Anyway that’s my $0.20 worth. In brief, some suggested (Australian centric) additional answer options…..

Education –
Technical College
Software Vendor Certified Training

Ethnicity – Pacific Islander
Aboriginal
(I’m sure more should be added from other places to!)

Location – Major City
Regional City
Rural
(or something along those lines)

I’d also like to see some questions about professional networking.

Hope this helps!

posted at 08:55 am on May 3, 2007 by Cathy Lill

88 And for the volunteers?

I do most of my work as a volunteer.. Ergo, I get no money for my work.

posted at 09:09 pm on May 4, 2007 by Zach Ahn

89 Web Design Diversity

From reading these posts, I see proof that our industry has lots of diversity. Two people can do the exact same jobs with entirely different job titles, or self-employed vs. working for a firm. This survey did a good job trying to appease the many different flavors within the “Web Design” Community. Or is it the “Internet Development” Community? Or maybe it’s something else…“Those Who Make The Web A Better Place For Everyone Else” Community.

Dang, gotta go change my business cards again.

posted at 11:38 pm on May 4, 2007 by Connecticut Websites

90 Good survey

I was able to complete it in like 10 or 15 minutes, a few days ago… Good questions. Survey not too long, not too short. Overall…

Maybe I just agree to some extent with
http://alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=9#81
…option to answer with greater detail would be nice:)

Cheers :)

posted at 05:56 pm on May 6, 2007 by Michel Bozgounov

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