What Linux Users Are Saying About GNOME In 2012 (Part 1)

[phoronix]

Phoronix: What Linux Users Are Saying About GNOME In 2012 (Part 1)

With the 2012 GNOME User Survey now officially over, here's the start of the results. In this posting are the first (of two) batches of feedback that users supplied while filling out the survey. This year there were 4,494 people participating in the annual yet independent GNOME survey. Of the nearly 4.5k respondents, 1,950 of them also provided feedback with this first batch consisting of the first one thousand responses. The results from the survey in full will also be published this week.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=18275

[gens]

has there been this much comments in the previous years ?

[0xCAFE]

has there been this much comments in the previous years ?

Last year there were 9807 responses, this year only 1950. No wonder, since this year's "survey" was even more moronic than last year's.

[3coma3]

Like GNOME devs/fans say "if you don't like it, don't use it" (this time regarding the survey, not the software).

Also, where's the GNOME official survey? Are they even interested in systematic feedback?

[Roberto Dirksen]

I'm using Arch Linux with Gnome 3.6 and I love it. The people who dislike it are too stupid to understand how to use it correctly. I really hope the Gnome developers ignore the whiners.

[pingufunkybeat]

Also, where's the GNOME official survey? Are they even interested in systematic feedback?

When you need to know, they will tell you what to think.

[kigurai]

Also, where's the GNOME official survey? Are they even interested in systematic feedback?

Making a survey that actually gives you interesting data is not an easy task, for several reasons.
If you make a bad survey you will no doubt get lots of data (this article is case in point) but interpreting it can be impossible (this article, case in point again).

Also, users generally do not know what they really want, regardless of what they may think.

[StephanG]

While, I'm all for user feedback, don't you think the survey could have been better handled. Don't use Gnome myself, so I didn't feel I had the right to give feedback and so I don't know how the survey was laid out. But, 1 000 paragraphs, that have to be individually read and analyzed can't be the best way to go about it.

How about, "On a scale of 1 - 10, how do you feel about Gnome's ..." then it would be easy to see where users rated it high or low. With maybe a comment box at the bottom for new suggestions.

But, if you are set on interpreting the data like this, at the VERY least, remove the "feedback", that is not in any way helpful. Such as:

23: Yes, change or die. And I think you all are paid by enemies of the FLOSS/Linux community. Otherwise kill yourselves.

[3coma3]

While, I'm all for user feedback, don't you think the survey could have been better handled. Don't use Gnome myself, so I didn't feel I had the right to give feedback and so I don't know how the survey was laid out. But, 1 000 paragraphs, that have to be individually read and analyzed can't be the best way to go about it.

How about, "On a scale of 1 - 10, how do you feel about Gnome's ..." then it would be easy to see where users rated it high or lo. With maybe a comment box at the bottom for new suggestions.

But, if you are set on interpreting the data like this, at the VERY least, remove the "feedback", that is not in any way helpful. Such as:

That's a nice, constructive oppinion. And I agree. Would very much see something like that coming from GNOME though, I must say

Meanwhile maybe you can take feedback like that as "1" ?

Making a survey that actually gives you interesting data is not an easy task, for several reasons.
If you make a bad survey you will no doubt get lots of data (this article is case in point) but interpreting it can be impossible (this article, case in point again).

Also, users generally do not know what they really want, regardless of what they may think.

This is the other side of the spectrum. Denial. First an excuse for how hard is to make a good survey. Then dismissing the idea altogether on the basis that users are dumb. This is a useless oppinion, and I can only hope the GNOME team is not like minded (I have tiny hopes tho).

You get lots of thata here because it is the only survey in existence, as we lack an official one. As StephanG correctly points out (and you too, kinda), there are ways to make survey data more parseable and make it more useful.

[halo9en]

But, if you are set on interpreting the data like this, at the VERY least, remove the "feedback", that is not in any way helpful. Such as: 23: Yes, change or die. And I think you all are paid by enemies of the FLOSS/Linux community. Otherwise kill yourselves.

Agreed. Many comments can be summed up as either "I love Windoze-like interfaces, don't innovate, keep Gnome 2", or "nyah nyah, XXX is a better desktop". And then the inevitable morons ("let it die", "kill yourselves", etc etc.)