71 Technologies?

I’d like to see a lot more questions regarding preferred technologies. E.g.
If you do backend programming, do you prefer php, ruby, java, asp, cf, etc…
Do you identify more with the LAMP bundle or Microsoft?
Do you generally use open source, closed source, or tailor made solutions?
What Search Engine do you use?
What browser / Platform / Screen size do you use predominantly?
Order the following list, starting with the things which are most important to you:
• Accessibility
• Standards Compliance
• Cross Browser Compatibility
• Usability
• Discoverability
• Security
• Aesthetics
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Speed of Development

posted at 06:58 am on April 27, 2007 by Chris Gillis

72 Missing Info

Question 4 needs a choice like Junior Developer. Having a “junior” status doesn’t necessarily mean I know less it just means I get paid less.

Also my specific profession is completely missing. I do Email Marketing and SEO. I would definitely consider what I do to be more on in the field of Web Development (and thus worthy of being in the survey) than marketing even though we almost always are working with the marketing department of our clients.

I would have liked to have been able to explain any “other” choices I made.

posted at 08:44 am on April 27, 2007 by Jonathan Worent

73 More comments

I guess I shouldn’t have submitted my comment quite yet.

In Question 11, Whats the difference between US:Midwest and US:Great Plains. Living smack dab in the middle of Illinois (Peoria, IL to be exact) I’m really in both.

I apologize if I came across a little nit-picky. Let me now that the time to say how much I appreciate this effort. You guys are very correct; there is definitely a lack of data about out field.

posted at 08:56 am on April 27, 2007 by Jonathan Worent

74 Interesting indeed,..

I personally found the questions about gender and race being an issue in employment to be very important. Although I have the most education in the office, as well as most experience in information engineering, I am always made aware that some colleagues don’t approve of females working in IT, much less in development. I wonder how many other female developers face these issues.

I would love to be able to view the results when this survey is completed, and perhaps discuss the outcome with an open forum.

I also found the holiday/vacations questions to be confusing – perhaps wording the holidays as state/govt/bank holidays would clarify the issue.

posted at 11:49 am on April 27, 2007 by Geneva Fox

75 RE: re: geographic and employee/employer categorie

J. Zeldman wrote

Our initial inclination was to list every nation on earth in a drop-down. But the other surveys didn’t do this. We followed their lead so we (and you) could more compare our findings to theirs. […] Copying patterns established by previous surveys (such as the way they categorized geographic regions) will enable apple-to-apple comparisons.

That’s reasonable on the face of it, but you’ve made your data less useful, the survey more confusing, and you didn’t need to do so.

The part about making the survey more confusing should be fairly evident from the number of comments saying “Wait, where do I live?” and “Does Colorado count as south west?” and such. But perhaps the “data less useful” part is not so obvious.

It’s a matter of data conversion. If you’ve got a specific location, you can turn it into a more general location. Egypt is in Africa. So if you know the respondent is from Egypt, you also know that he or she is from Africa. But if all you know is that the respondent is from Africa, then it’s impossible to say where exactly in Africa that person might be. Could be Congo. Or Sudan. Or Cote d’Ivoire. Or Algeria. You can convert a specific location into a general, but not vice versa.

For next year, consider this approach:

1) Put in a drop-down of every nation on earth so people can just pick whatever country they happen to live in.

2) Re-categorize that data later. “Oh, they’re in Botswana. That counts as Africa.”

3) For the apples-to-apples comparison you’re interested in, just coordinate with the AIGA people to make sure that your general-area categories and theirs match up.

Lastly, I’d like to add a “me too” to the employee-over-focused bandwagon. I’m not a free-lancer, exactly, but neither am I a full-time employee. I’m a full-time graduate student. I teach composition to support myself. But I also maintain the departmental web site, and do assorted odds-and-ends of web work to supplement my rather meager income. I suppose you could call the web parts “freelance.” But all of that “freelance” work comes from just one client, the university, who is also my regular employer. So I’m neither fish nor fowl.

posted at 12:18 pm on April 27, 2007 by Will Martin

76 Will the data be available in raw format?

I think this survey is great. Very professional, as one would expect from the ALA guys.

I would however like to know if the data will be available in raw format? The reason i’m asking is because i am studying in college and i am currently taking an “Applied Statistics” course. This data would be very fun to test out some of the concepts.

Furthermore i think that by publishing the data a lot of interesting analysis could come to light.

My apologies if this has already been answered

posted at 12:35 pm on April 27, 2007 by Michael Pedersen

78 "Web Design Survey" - but it is about more than "d

Should this really be called “Web Design Survey”? This catch-all phrase is used for every type of web activity, e.g. coding, techical support, online marketing, content production – as well as design. indeed, the survey questions themselves show that it is not focused exclusively on design.

Something like “Web Activity Survey” or “Web Management Survey” would be better, methinks.

posted at 02:45 pm on April 27, 2007 by Shane Diffily

79 Untitled

Oo – careful not to confuse “feedback” and “complaints”, Mr. Zeldman. I can’t speak for others, but I was offering feedback.

posted at 12:29 am on April 28, 2007 by Will Martin

80 Data: How Good is It?

As a “convenient” and “self-selecting” survey, it’s statistically garbage. However, I am anxious to see the results.

These are the same problems that haunt design in general: who is a legitimate designer, and how do you know?

posted at 01:22 am on April 28, 2007 by Benjamin Bertrand