[ODE] <Survey>: ODE - Present and Direction.

[Mike Reinstein]

Here is my analysis of what is wrong with the survey as I see it:

Question 1: The middle ranges are too qualitative; While "perfect" and 
useless are clear indicators of how someone feels about ode, the middle 
ranges are ambiguous and meaningless.. for example,  how do you quantify the 
difference between "needs some work" and "needs plentyof work"?
suggestions for improvement:
Add a short answer section that allows people to comment on why and how ode 
is good/bad. While this does not allow you to tally results in a nice 
looking progress bar % meter, it lets people generate meaningful, tangible 
feedback that can be quantified. (eg  "Needs Some work, capped cylinder 
supoort is blah blah blah [insert comment here]")


Question 2:  This is probably ok, but I might add a section allowing people 
to specify which specific platform they are using for the last option.


Question 3: The wording here is misleading..."Where does ODE failthe most?" 
implies that a single answer response is expected. Limit this to allowing 
only 1 entry to be chosen.
As with question 1, allowing people to provide information describing WHY 
that particular item fails the most is important because it allows people to 
quantify and explain their choice.

Question 4: This question should be eliminated, it is redundant w.r.t. 
questions 5-7

Question 5: Change the wording to "which future development is top priority 
for you?"

Questions 6,7: See q5

Question 8: Split this up into 2 questions; q8 contains list of existing 
primitives that are important, q9 includes list of future primitives that 
are important (be sure to provide a brief explanation of future primitives 
so more people will know what they are selecting)


Question 9:(will be question 10) this is fine, although I dont see this 
providing much insight into anything...


This may seem like nitpicking, but I assure you it's not. Carefully 
developing a survey is critical because otherwise you accumulate feedback on 
an issue, attempt to satisfy the needs derived from the survey results, and 
that in turn inevitably leads to converging on the wrong solution(s).

If the survey system you are using does not allow for these types of survey 
collection controls,I would argue that we should go with a another survey 
system that does allow information to be collected in this fashion. (There 
are dozens of free systems to choose from, or we could write one...we are 
talking about to mysql tables and a handfullof php scripts)

Mike


>From: "gl" <gl at ntlworld.com>
>To: <ode at q12.org>
>Subject: Re: [ODE] <Survey>: ODE - Present and Direction.
>Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 17:15:13 +0100
>
>
> > limited their answer set.  I think redesigning the poll would 
yield
> > drastically different results. As it stands right now, we've not 
learned
> > much from it (we already knew before the poll that everybody wants
> > everything :P)
>
>I disagree, there's a lot of useful info in there.  For example, what 
people
>generally think of ODE, that the biggest perceived failings are 
currently
>solver speed and collision accuracy (makes sense), the fact that most of 
the
>collision primitives are useful to a lot people...
>
>With regards to having too many options to check, the survey doesn't 
allow
>things like assigning priorities to answers - it's either 1 of 10, or 
any of
>10 - so I had to break the 'top 3 priorites' question into 3 steps of 
single
>answers.  It's not ideal, but if you look at those, again you see what
>people most care about.
>
>Which questions did you find redundant?
>--
>gl
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mike Reinstein" <web_fella at hotmail.com>
>To: <ode at q12.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 3:58 PM
>Subject: Re: [ODE] <Survey>: ODE - Present and Direction.
>
>
> >
> > Not to get too caught up in details, but it strikes me that the 
even
>spread
> > might be the result of the poll being thrown together very 
quickly...A lot
> > of the questions are doubly redundant, plus giving people the 
option to
> > check all boxes they want causes people to respond differently 
than if you
> > limited their answer set.  I think redesigning the poll would 
yield
> > drastically different results. As it stands right now, we've not 
learned
> > much from it (we already knew before the poll that everybody wants
> > everything :P)
> >
> > just my 2.5 cents
> >
> > --neko
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >From: James Arthur <teamonkey at gmail.com>
> > >To: ode at q12.org
> > >Subject: Re: [ODE] <Survey>: ODE - Present 
and Direction.
> > >Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 15:13:34 +0100
> > >
> > >On Tue, 11 May 2004 10:55:40 -0700, Russ Smith 
<russ at q12.org>
> > wrote:
> > > > i'm paying close attention to this survey. the 
results so far
>seem
> > to
> > > > indicate that, on average, people want 
everything! which i guess
> > is no
> > > > particular surprise...
> > >
> > >It's quite unusual to have *such* an even spread across 
the board
> > >though. You obviously can't please everyone.
> > >
> > >One choice that I didn't see was the sanction of a 
GLUT-like ODE
> > >Utility Library that could encapsulate the non-core 
functions of ODE
> > >(such as cloth, fluids and more evolved collision 
structures).
> > >
> > >James
> > >_______________________________________________
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> >
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