A List Apart Comments for Article: The Survey, 2008

Digg it?

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:55:57 GMT

Help spread the word and "digg it":http://digg.com/tech_news/Take_the_2008_A_List_Apart_Survey

Untitled

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:05:30 GMT

I appreciate that you guys are conducting this. It's always great to see a cumulative spread of information in this field. The information is very valuable!

Untitled

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:16:03 GMT

What does "Comp time" mean under Perks?

Untitled

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:26:16 GMT

If you have a full-time, salaried position, comp time is the time over 40 hours that you work which you are allowed to take off at a later date. So, for example, if you work 45 hours one week, you could get 5 hours comp time, which gets added to your paid time off or vacation time.

re: UNTITLED

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:03:38 GMT

Thanks, Amber.

Enter key broken

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:18:02 GMT

The enter key is broken in this survey. Instead of it taking me to the next page, it takes me to the previous page.

Designers of Color Come on Down

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:24:22 GMT

Hopefully there will be more diverse audience this year. Black Web 2.0 will do the best we can to get the word out.

Sponsorship

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:58:48 GMT

I will take part in the surver, as I did last year, but with a very targeted viewership of business professionals of well over 30,000, surely it would be possible to attract a related sponsor who would provide some sort of prize for one lucky person as a further incentive to take part?

another word for comp time

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:05:50 GMT

Another word for comp time is 'time-in-lieu' (as in, in lieu of overtime) and it's what's used in several other places. Would it be worth adjusting the wording to help?

Do you know where is middle east?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:30:53 GMT

I just started to take your survey,in second page the question is: In which global region are you located? - North and central America - South America - Europe - Africa - Asia - Oceania - Antarctica I'm from middle east, and in your list, middle east dose not exist Did you see ever anyone from middle east who using the web or doing web programming? Look at the order: North America!!, South America!! , Europe!! I'm suggesting to take a look to your geography books.

link to banner?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:38:55 GMT

I accidently clicked out of the page and would like the image and link to the survey. It was when you completed it. Any luck on passing it on? :)

Geography

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:19:41 GMT

"Moshe said":http://alistapart.com/comments/survey2008?page=1#10 : bq. I’m from middle east, and in your list, middle east dose not exist Did you see ever anyone from middle east who using the web or doing web programming? Look at the order: North America!!, South America!! , Europe!! I’m suggesting to take a look to your geography books. Actually, we used the "United Nations Statistics Division's Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications":http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm to group countries by continent.

Geography

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:06:47 GMT

Nice, middle east is part of Asia, but from usability perspective, it's nice to consider it as different region. Some peoples don't know that middle east is in Asia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East At least we can consider it as Cradle of civilization and religions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia

Continental division

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:17:01 GMT

@Mohsen That's definitely true, but look at it in terms of continental division. Australia is nearly the size of North America, but it gets a classification under Oceania. Division by religion and cultural flags can get a bit too political. I guess that's why it's been divided by continental groupings :)

Same as last year :-(

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:24:15 GMT

Still the same problem as last year - as a hobbyist web writer with a full-time job doing something completely non-web-related, I found it impossible to answer some of the questions. eg, when you are asking about salaries etc, is it just the salary for my web work (which is limited to a very occasional cheque from Google AdSense), or is it the salary for my full-time job?

Untitled

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:27:25 GMT

@ Mohsen: bq. Nice, middle east is part of Asia, but from usability perspective, it’s nice to consider it as different region. Some peoples don’t know that middle east is in Asia. Well, right, but if you're working/living in the Middle East, don't you probably _know_ it's part of Asia? You said yourself you know the Middle East is part of Asia. Assuming one's English is reasonably sound, I'm guessing any sensible adult can determine which _continent_ he lives on.

Hobbyists

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:53:36 GMT

Sorry, "Stephen":http://alistapart.com/comments/survey2008?page=2#15 . If you selected the choice "I do most of my work as a student, hobbyist, volunteer, or other uncompensated role" then you should not have gotten any questions about salary-- I didn't get it when I did a test run and picked that option, though I did (appropriately, I think, at least in general) get questions about yearly income and hourly billing rates. We did try to tune the questions a little bit better for hobbyists, but perhaps we fell short. Like the profession itself, the survey itself evolves from year to year, so we'll always have another chance to make it better with help from the community.

Georgraphy, prizes, and sponsors

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:57:12 GMT

Thanks, everyone, for taking the survey, and for sharing your feedback. A couple of quick points: bq. I will take part in the surver, as I did last year, but with a very targeted viewership of business professionals of well over 30,000, surely it would be possible to attract a related sponsor who would provide some sort of prize for one lucky person as a further incentive to take part? For a survey like this, it is important to avoid commercial sponsorship, lest the commercial relationship influence (or be perceived to influence) the neutrality of the data. At least one organization I respect runs a survey like this with backing from a commercial sponsor, and I in no way mean to impugn that organization. I'm just saying what feels right _to us._ A List Apart, An Event Apart, and Happy Cog paid for the prizes last year. Our companies also paid the considerably higher expenses involved in hiring the best data analysts we could find, and will do so again this year. Given the overwhelming community response last year, it didn't seem necessary to do giveaways this year. bq. Some peoples don’t know that middle east is in Asia. As Eric "mentioned":http://alistapart.com/comments/survey2008?page=2#12 , we used the "United Nations Statistics Division’s Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications":http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm to group countries by continent.

Career History

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:06:22 GMT

Might be an idea to have an "other" otion on question 20. I came into web after about 4 - 5 years as a Mechanical Design Engineer - hardly a "non-technical" job, but not IT either.... Otherwise - it's nice to see someone giving a **** about web developers!!

vacation question

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:10:09 GMT

Regarding question 31... should the ranges in days for vacation overlap? 0 days 1-3 days 4-8 days 9-11 days 11-13 days 13-15 days More than 15 days I get 11 days thus I am unsure which to select.

Thanks for doing what you guys do...

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:07:53 GMT

It's been amazing following your guys and reading your stuff. You have enhanced my life and work.

re: vacation question

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:37:07 GMT

Angie: Looks like we goofed in the way we framed those two answers, and missed the mistake while proofreading. Pick either answer. Thanks!

Re: Geography

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:05:56 GMT

unfortunately,I saw some peoples from north America and Europe that don't know where is middle east.

Untitled

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:25:58 GMT

"What is your gender?" Just a little note, if the socially constructed gender and/or the biological sex is important, at least have an option like "None of the above/individual" for all the people in the middle... :) And race.... huh? Reactionary and a bit offensive.

Just taken this survey :)

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:50:33 GMT

Thanks for this survey. I have enjoyed answering the questions. When would the results be out?

Indigenous/Native

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:43:50 GMT

Let me be the one that stirs this year's ethnicity debat: I think most defined groups are pretty complementary, but Indigenous/Native is not. I guess many, if not most black, white and asian people in the world will be natives as well. I'm a native white European for instance and I'm definitly not an exception over here ;)

Untitled

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:48:03 GMT

See I was not the first after all. Difference is that I'm not offended by questions about race as "Pontus":http://alistapart.com/comments/survey2008?page=3#24 seems to be.

Untitled

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:10:34 GMT

Just a little note, if the socially constructed gender and/or the biological sex is important, at least have an option like “None of the above/individual” for all the people in the middle… It’s been amazing following your guys and reading your stuff. You have enhanced my life and work.

Seconds on Career History Options

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:59:33 GMT

@James: I second your thought on the Career History question. I worked previously a Civil Engineer, and found the available choices didn't quite fit me either. "Other" would be great.

ME Last year survey results

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:06:37 GMT

I know that's too late but I've worked out the results from last years survey and formed a Middle Eastern survey, I filter Middle Eastern results alone to get a separate "survey results for Middle East in 2007":http://mewebdesignsurvey.dabbledb.com/publish/mewebdesignsurvey.

ME Last year survey results

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:07:27 GMT

I salute You!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:20:39 GMT

This is great! I used to look into and take the AIGA surveys, however they were targeted to the North American professionals only, which left out the rest of the world. One thing I ran across as I was filling out the information, was that Kosova wasn't on the list of countries. Web Design is picking up steadily in Kosova, with few solid companies in Prishtina and it would be great for these guys (us) to be able to enter the data. I lead the interactive team at Ogilvy Kosova (www.ogilvyks.com) and am surprised at how much work and interest there is here - compared to my 9 year stint in the US working for some major clients, i.e.: NBA, Oxfam, etc. Cheers to this great undertaking & looking forward to seeing Kosova on the list. Valon.

Undocumented browser requirements?

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:26:05 GMT

The survey won't progress past "Page 2 of 18" (which shows question 0). Are specific undisclosed browser settings required, such as cookies, Javascript and so on?

Kosava

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:29:37 GMT

Yalon, I'm very sorry about that. For some reason Kosova (which we spell over here as Kosovo) isn't listed in "ISO 3166":http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/english_country_names_and_code_elements.htm , which was our source for country names.

Lack of Progress

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:40:40 GMT

MJ, I'm not aware of any undocumented requirements. I have had this reported very, very, _very_ rarely with other surveys using the UCCASS software. I've never been able to recreate the problem to diagnose it, unfortunately. Which browser/OS/plugins/extensions are you using?

Thanks Guys!

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:42:51 GMT

I'm looking forward to the results. I think these kind of things are always helpful. I really liked seeing the results of Freelance Switch's big survey last year as well. For any who missed that one, "check it out": http://freelanceswitch.com/general/3700-freelancers-surveyed-the-results-are-here/

bring us to the light

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:05:31 GMT

Hi all, i am so glad to have participated in this survey. However, i wish and i request u to takes me towards a better horizon of new and advanced learning which will help me improve my design skills.

Well WEll

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:54:53 GMT

i would love to get them a Life Alert