Web site surveys

A few of you may have seen the 4Q Survey I had running here recently. This is a free service you can add to your own site. It's a "pre and post view" survey; that is, it asks before you see your requested page if you'd be willing to take a survey after reading the page. If you say yes, a separate window opens with the survey and the original page you requested opens in the current window. That's how it's supposed to work anyway..

I don't like that kind of interaction. I'd much rather put a badge (like the "Chat with Tony Lawrence" boxes on support pages) or a link inviting people to take the survey, but 4Q seems adamant about this method. I've asked them why they won't offer a link or badge as an option; so far I have had no answer.

I disabled this rather quickly after 67 responses because I had several who didn't like the interference and said so rather caustically. There may have been others who liked it just as little and didn't take the survey at all (but still left unhappy). 4Q says that there will always be a "small percentage" of unhappy people.. well, any percentage is too much for me.. however, you could certainly argue that ticking off a few people is worth it if you find out how to better satisfy the rest. I leave it to you to make your own decision in that regard. I've made mine: I'm not going to use this unless they offer a badge or a link.

I did get some positive comments:

• thanks for helping in understanding gpg quickly
• Easy to understand
• It is nicely written and quite informative.
• excellect collection
• Informaiton is presented in a very friendly and easy to understand manner. Thank you.
• all the precious informations about SCO, can't find in any other site
• Didn't know it was here until today. Needed a definition of ACLs
• The article I looked at was very detailed on almost any technical level. In other words, enough detail for most people, but not so much that the "geeks" are bored stiff. ;-)
• accurate info
• Woowoo. Aplawrence is a huge bad-ass. I value his awsomeness beyond all else. --Drag (plus he is generally informative and entertaining)
• Most people with such a deep technical understanding are unable to articulate that well into interesting conversation or articles. Tony manages it so well and is very honest and open with his views.
• lots of informationo
• The wide variety of articles
• Clarity of information.
• Reliable information
• group knowledge
• easy navigation

And some not so positive - these were in the "Didn't get what I wanted out of my visit" responses:

• looking for solution to error in encrypting with PGP and decrypting with GPG
• It didn't provide the algorithm used by Perl to generate random numbers.
• This fucking servey popped yp before I had a chance to evel look for a solution to my problem!
• search the site about GPG...
  
  I can't understand how you could not find GPG articles here..
  
  
• Incorrect operating system. Was my fault.... and google
• Problem had no solutions - clutching at straws.
• survey came up before I could look
• This survey. I am inheriting an SCO OpenServer and was Googling up some general information. This FAQ seemed exactly what I wanted. Instead, after I viewed one or two items I get this survey, which effectively destroyed all interest in this site.
• Wanted to know differnce between managed and unmanaged switch
  
  I'm pretty sure there's something easily found here that explains that: What is a Managed Switch?
  
  
• I believe more research is needed to complete my task.
• Old post didn't pertain to current need.
  
  And did they try searching? Probably not..
  
  
• How do I respond to your question when I won't know the answer until *after* I see the page!
  
  I'm not sure if the survey screwed up or the reader did, but I don't care: it did not work for this reader.
  
  

Well, I guess that wasn't too bad, though I think a few of these people were really upset. I don't like upsetting readers - it's bound to happen now and then, but I don't like it. I think the surveys would be a helpful source of information if the method of presentation were not so confrontational.

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