[development] Drupal administration survey draft based on 10 interviews

[Gary Feldman]

Kieran Lal wrote:
> ...
> How would you describe yourself as a Drupal administrator?
> (select all that apply)
This, and several others, seem to be "pick the best one" questions, not 
"select all that apply" questions.
> New user
> Non-technical user developing community or social change web site 
> forced to become "accidental technologist"
The nature of the web site doesn't seem relevant.  How about:  " 
Non-technical user developing a web site, and becoming adept at the 
technology"
> Inexperienced with Drupal but curious. Learning fast based on other 
> web site building experience
Should this just be "Inexperienced with Drupal but learning fast, based 
on ..."?
> Experienced user, comfortable with configuring site rapidly
Perhaps "Experienced administrator, ..." would be better.  I expect most 
participants won't have the benefit of the recent discussions on 
terminology for users, administrators, developers, etc.
> ...
> How frequently do you administer you your Drupal site?
> (select all that apply)
Again, pick the best one.
> ...
> How long do you administer your Drupal site in a single sitting 
> approximately?
> (select all that apply)
Ditto
> ...
> How does Drupal help you accomplish your goals as a web site 
> administrator?
> (select all that apply)
> Rapid deployment of features and ability to meet customer requirements 
> saves time
Strike "saves time", it's implied by "rapid".
> Web based content publishing is easy and allows for end user contributions
> Learnable website that can be taught to users and allows website 
> developers to leverage existing learning when building new sites
This seems to be two separate items. 
> Allows for monitoring and logging of the website
> Module configuration, extensibility with new modules, and clean code 
> make it easier to configure the website as  you need it
How about "easy to customize", just to read better? 
> Dynamic and exciting community allows for rapid and fun learning
Does community mean "Drupal user community"?  Or the community that the 
person is creating?
> ...
> How does Drupal help your users?
> ...
> Cost effective and winning over non-technical decision makers
I can't parse this.  Should it be "Cost effective, easy to convince 
non-technical decision makers"?
> ...
> What are some common Drupal administration tasks? 
> (select all that apply)
Should this be "select all", "select no more than 3", or something 
else?  In this case, "select all" is meaningful, but I don't think it's 
the right question. 

I'd also change it to read "What are _your_ ...", so it's clear it's 
about what they do, not what they think Drupal administrators in general do.
> ...
> What are some infrequent Drupal tasks?
> (select all that apply)
Ditto, but see next comment.
> Add new features by adding modules or coding new features
> ...
> Modify site navigation
> Other_______________
The fact that this list differs from the preceding list suggests that 
you already believe these to be infrequent.  But does that mean that if 
the respondent doesn't check something, it means that it's a frequent 
task, or that it's not a task at all?  Or more to the point, what is 
this question trying to learn?  Should it be something like "These are 
some Drupal tasks that are done less frequently.  Which of these do you 
consider important?" 
>
> When you administer your site you find it easy to:
> (1 is not easy, 5 is very easy)
> ...
> When you administer your site you find it hard to?
> (1 is not hard, 5 is very hard)
The duality here is a bit more meaningful, but still confusing.  Why not 
combine these into one question? 

Regardless, having the first one be "1 is not easy" and the second one 
be "1 is not hard" will cause people to mess up.  If you want to keep 
these as two separate questions, then perhaps it would work better if 
you asked "Do you agree or disagree that the following are easy tasks?", 
and "Do you agree or disagree that the following are difficult tasks?", 
with 1 being strongly agree and 5 being strongly disagree.  I'm not 
positive this would be better, but it feels better to me. 

Another alternative would be to just move the questions away from each 
other, so that the respondent doesn't trip over the flipping of the scale.
> What other important tasks did not fit into the categories above for you?
Which categories?  There's frequent/infrequent and easy/hard.  If 
something isn't checked, does that mean it's not important, or that it's 
neither easy nor hard, or what?

My expectation when I read "What other important tasks" is that there 
will be a text area for me to insert arbitrary items.  If these have 
already been identified as possible tasks, why aren't they just included 
above?
> ...
> Setting up a testing process including creating a test role, 
> soliciting feedback from users, configuring corrections, and working 
> with module development process to get bugs resolved
Should this be split into a testing item and a bug fix item?

I hope this is helpful.  It it's not, let me know and I'll shut up.

Gary