[Strategic] User feedback or What does the community want / miss / annoy

[Kai Krueger]

On 05/27/2011 12:17 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 05/27/2011 06:12 AM, Kai Krueger wrote:
>> In addition to usability testing that some are currently doing, it would
>> possibly be good to gather some more statistics of what people want to
>> do with the homepage, what is currently missing and what bothers people
>> most with the current design.
>
> Before that, it would be good to have a (attention marketing-speak) 
> "mission statement" from which we could derive what kinds of people we 
> want to please with our main page.
I totally agree that we need a "mission statement" against which we 
could derive what kinds of people we want to please with our main page. 
However, I would argue that that is independent of users feedback. The 
users will want what they want, if it fits with our mission or not. It 
is once you know what that feedback is that you can start evaluating 
that feedback against the "mission statement" and what resources of 
various forms we have in order to actually implement any of it.
>
> For example, I'm sure I could find a number of people who would say 
> that our main page lacks the option to show aerial imagery (as 
> compared to $COMMERCIAL_MAP_PROVIDER); to which our answer would 
> clearly be "this page is intended to showcase the power of OSM maps 
> and not that of a third-party imagery provider, so if you want aerial 
> imagery, look elsewhere".

Yes, that is a very nice example where getting such feedback can be 
valuable. Rather than respond with <sarcastic> "Go away we don't want 
that kind of feedback. How dare do you mention this on our webpage. 
Didn't you know all along this page was about generating 100s of 
gigabyte of XML and not about pleasing users?" </sarcastic> One could 
for example add a section "Uses of OpenStreetMap data" link onto the 
homepage, in which a prominent link to a third party that does offer the 
this service (assuming it exists somewhere in the OSM universe). So 
these "user wishes" rather than "mapper wishes" can also help us create 
good wiki documentation, as we might know what to highlight in the 
beginners guide for reasons to contribute to OSM.

>
> But this is an easy example; there will be others much less clear, and 
> most along the well-known fault line of whether our target audience is 
> (a) mostly mappers, (b) non-mappers whom we encourage to become 
> mappers, or (c) the great unwashed^W^Wgeneral public.
Yes, being able to identify into which category a users falls would 
definitely help. But in some ways, we need to cater for all three groups 
even if in very different ways. To a) we would rather (try to) respond 
in "implementing services" to b) and particularly c) we would react in 
form of "information" of how there needs can be satisfied within the OSM 
universe (even if osm.org is the wrong place for it directly)

b) is hopefully clear why osm should care about, as they become 
potential mappers. We need to care about c) though as well, as they 
provide the resource of publicity, to spread the name "OpenStreetMap" 
and therefore indirectly increase the pool of people from which we can 
potentially recruit mappers. Something we imho still need desperately in 
most parts of the world. If a person doesn't know about OSM then we can 
tweak as much as we want on the homepage and increase its usability, 
they won't become a mapper.

>
> You acknowledge that further down (very far down) in your posting when 
> you say
>
> > Many/most of the suggestions will likely never be
> > implemented. Either because it would take to much effort to implement
> > or because osmf might decide it is not desirable or does not fit in
> > with its strategic goals.
Yes, I think that is a very important aspect for all sides to realize, 
as it will help to reduce the conflict between developers and users that 
too often become apparent in questions and replies.


>
> I just think it would be good to have well-defined strategic goals to 
> begin with, against which these suggestions can then be measured. That 
> would make for a clearer process.
Yes, and I think that "well-defined" strategy is what is currently 
missing a bit and where I would see SWGs role (rather than JFDI. That 
part is for dev not swg). Just that as I said above that is independent 
from the feedback system. The users with their feedback don't "give a 
damn" about some odd "strategy" of OSMF, so that won't and _shouldn't_ 
influence the feedback system. What it very much will influence is how 
this feedback will later be used to implement anything.
>
>> I would thus like to suggest to add such a feedback mechanism onto the
>> homepage for a while to get a decent feeling for what the community
>> wants from the webpage and see if any of it can be implemented.
>
> The above paragraph contains the possible misconception that "the 
> community" would use the feedback mechanism. It is just as likely that 
> random visitors would; so if you do build such a mechanism, make sure 
> to let people identify themselves ("I am a mapper/regular 
> user/occasional visitor/first-time visitor" or something like that).
If we can get feedback from random visitors, all the better. One 
negative issue with such a feedback system is that one only gets the 
feedback from people who visit the webpage and not the people who don't, 
but would want to. So "random visitors" is the closes one can get to 
that with this mechanism. But yes, as said above, being able to identify 
and categorise user's feedback accordingly would be valuable.
>
>
>> In order for this to work, everyone has to be very clear that this would
>> be simply a big wish list with a voting system to try and understand the
>> wishes of the community.
>
> The above paragraph contains the possible misconception that "the 
> community" would use the feedback/voting mechanism and that we should 
> do what "the community" wants. It is entirely possible that 65% of 
> male respondents tell you they want more boobs on the front page; so 
> you have to measure any responses you get against what the front page 
> is *supposed* to do.
We don't necessarily need to do what "the community" wants if it goes 
against what osm(f) stands for, but we at least need to know what it 
wants to be able to logically and with reason reject it with appropriate 
arguments.

If 65% of our "community" want more boobs (and we are quickly 
approaching the ridiculing of the feedback system again I mentioned in 
my previous post), than so be it. Not knowing about this wish is not 
going to change the wish. On the other hand, if we do know about it, we 
might be able to counter act and write into our strategy "we need to 
attract more women", as the imbalance is leading "the community" and its 
goals astray.

Kai
>
> The front page is certainly not supposed to "please the maximum number 
> of random people who happen to take part in a feedback/voting system". 
> It is clear that results *must not* be taken at face value; they may 
> be "genuine wishes from users" but they may not apply to what *we* 
> want to achieve with the web site.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
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