[Qgis-community-team] [Qgis-user] [Qgis-psc] User question of the month

Wed Oct 16 16:08:57 PDT 2019

Hi Alexandre

> On 16 Oct 2019, at 01:33, Alexandre Neto <senhor.neto at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Sorry for the long email. Hope I don't kill the thread.
> I have been analyzing both the quantitative and qualitative answers, and from it can't say that people don't use it.
> 
> It's clear that people often search for help a lot: 
> While using QGIS, around 45% of people search for help at least one time per week (half of those use QGIS official docs), while 12% look for it daily (but only 2% use QGIS Official Docs). "Only" 35 % says that rarely or never use QGIS Docs, which is not a bad figure, I think.
> 
> About what is the first source for searching information, search engines came first, but it's unclear what the search leads them to. A stronger contestant seems to be gis.stackexchage, which is the first choice for almost the double of the number of people that uses QGIS Docs as the first choice. I think the qualitative answers shed some light on it. Many people stated that they want more how to's and more examples, which is stackexchage bread and butter. Many said that we should improve the search capacities of our docs, which may explain why they don't find answers in our docs. So, like Tom said, better SEO and internal search may make our documentation more valuable.
> 
> In terms of QGIS Docs quality, 32% says they often find what they were looking for and 42 % sometimes, which to me is a 5 (from 1 to 10), but seems that definitely needs improving.
> 
> From the quantitative answer, as Tom said, people seem very excited about QGIS official videos... but... IMHO it's simply too hard to maintain. But others mentioned an official Youtube channel.
> People ask for more examples and better descriptions of functions and parameters, especially about Processing algorithms. Like I said before, people want more How to's... again, something quite hard to maintain for each version. But people do search for it. 
> Another common request: make the docs up-to-date with the software.
> 
> This being said, I would love to know if the PSC came to some conclusion. 
> 
> As a documentation person myself, I naturally have to disagree with the idea that the project should aim (or simply resign) to a shrunk version of the documentation and let the outside world provide the fancy answers to the users. I don't believe PostgreSQL and PostGIS would have gotten far if they followed the same principle. Their documentation is complete and professional. IMHO, Good, precise, and updated documentation leads to more adoption and better user experience. 
> An interesting fact: in two weeks open to answers (half the time other surveys were "on air"), this questionnaire gathered more than 800 responses! To me, this alone says a bit about the importance that documentation has for our users.

Our main discussion points in the PSC meeting were:

1) Current documentation approach is unsustainable (a few hard core enthusiasts but not enough to cope with the rapid pace of development)
2) Inviting contributors needs to be substantially easier - I’m talking at the level of editing a google doc or word doc here. At the very least a GitHub markdown page that is instantly published as soon as you edit it.
3) Cameron has had a chat with me about employing technical writers to make the documents more cohesive - I think this is a good initiative but Cameron I think we need to get the fundamental issue of the editing platform sorted out first
4) Translations severely hamper our ability to switch to a more agile system (e.g. GitHub markdown based wiki or Google doc) - in the PSC call we want to surface the idea of doing away with translations and leave translation initiatives to outside communities (e.g. local user groups). PostgreSQL etc dont have the overhead of this.
5) Our documentation could be easier if the format was more structured - think something like editing a changelog entry here. Again we looked at the PostGIS / PostgreSQL examples here which have a very standardised format.

There were some sentiments in the PSC call to drop the documentation effort completely and leave it to all the various community members to deal with, but I think maybe my 1-5 points above make a better compromise of reduced overhead, more accessible platform for writing while still having docs in English at least. 

Regards

Tim

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Alex Neto
> 
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 4:14 PM Tom Chadwin <tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk <mailto:tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk>> wrote:
> Hello all
> 
>  
> 
> Here are my initial interpretations. I’d be interested to see whether you agree or disagree:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Questions 1-4 (quantitative)
> 
>  
> 
> - 70%’s first-choice is Googling/StackExchange, which dwarfs the <20% choosing official docs
> 
>  
> 
> - the fact that Googling came top of search methods emphasizes that we need to pay attention to SEO in the official docs
> 
>  
> 
> - fewer than 50% find their answers in the official docs “often” or “always”, 45% answering “sometimes”
> 
>  
> 
> - official docs are underused – over 50% only consult monthly or less frequently (including “never”)
> 
>  
> 
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> 
> Question 5 (qualitative)
> 
>  
> 
> - many find the official docs too abstract, and would prefer examples worked in
> 
>  
> 
> - perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a lot of enthusiasm for video tutorials
> 
>  
> 
> - there is some criticism of the confusion of QGIS versions in the documentation, especially when deep-linked from a Google result
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Does anything else leap out at you?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks
> 
>  
> 
> Tom
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Anita Graser [mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>] 
> Sent: 13 October 2019 13:22
> To: qgis-community; DelazJ; Tom Chadwin
> Subject: Re: [Qgis-community-team] [Qgis-user] [Qgis-psc] User question of the month
> 
>  
> 
> Hi,
> 
>  
> 
> After running this questionnaire for two weeks, we stand at 824 responses and it's time to look at the responses. 
> 
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> 
>  
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> Here's the timeline of incoming responses:
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/bpbpobi8ym5fyew/user_survey_documentation_responses.PNG?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/bpbpobi8ym5fyew/user_survey_documentation_responses.PNG?dl=0>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> And here are the answers to the questions:
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8tknpjmuu9c5e7/user_survey_documentation_q1.PNG?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8tknpjmuu9c5e7/user_survey_documentation_q1.PNG?dl=0>
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/cb5o632p2vdut38/user_survey_documentation_q2.PNG?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/cb5o632p2vdut38/user_survey_documentation_q2.PNG?dl=0>
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfmzijavnp9ptyj/user_survey_documentation_q3.PNG?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfmzijavnp9ptyj/user_survey_documentation_q3.PNG?dl=0>
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5lpcbl6q6ta19i/user_survey_documentation_q4.PNG?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5lpcbl6q6ta19i/user_survey_documentation_q4.PNG?dl=0>
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hs50x83vls728p/user_survey_documentation_q5.PNG?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hs50x83vls728p/user_survey_documentation_q5.PNG?dl=0>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Finally, here's the CSV export of all answers, including the free text field:
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf7sdzyv4x2jsx0/QGIS%20Question%20of%20the%20Month%20%282019-09%29%20-%20all%20versions%20-%20English%20%28en%29%20-%202019-10-13-12-05-26.csv?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf7sdzyv4x2jsx0/QGIS%20Question%20of%20the%20Month%20%282019-09%29%20-%20all%20versions%20-%20English%20%28en%29%20-%202019-10-13-12-05-26.csv?dl=0>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Usually, we publish the results in a follow-up blog post. 
> 
>  
> 
> @Tom and Harrissou: May I ask you to write an interpretation of the results (including the free text answers) ?
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 5:34 PM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> Looks like the question hits a nerve, there are already over 90 answers. 
> 
>  
> 
> On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 12:38 PM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> On request, I've added the option "QGIS Training Manual" to the first question. If you want to provide an updated translation for this item, please let me know when you've added it and I'll publish the change.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
> On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 9:53 AM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> Here's the published form: https://ee.kobotoolbox.org/single/::6Uro4EIq?returnUrl=https://qgis.org <https://ee.kobotoolbox.org/single/::6Uro4EIq?returnUrl=https://qgis.org>
> Please give it a try and feel free to forward it.
> 
>  
> 
> Later today, I'll write the blog post and publish it on Twitter as well.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 4:03 PM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> I'll publish this weekend. We can let it run through October
> 
> http://anitagraser.com <http://anitagraser.com/>
>  
> 
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 13:27 Ismail Sunni <imajimatika at gmail.com <mailto:imajimatika at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Hi Anita,
> 
>  
> 
> I am curious, when will the User Question of the Month be published in September? I just realized it's already the last week of September.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks
> 
> 
> Best regards.
> 
>  
> 
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 12:29 PM r.m.aguilardearchila at utwente.nl <mailto:r.m.aguilardearchila at utwente.nl> <r.m.aguilardearchila at utwente.nl <mailto:r.m.aguilardearchila at utwente.nl>> wrote:
> 
> Done for Spanish.
> 
> Gr,
> 
> Rosa
> 
>  
> 
> From: Qgis-community-team <qgis-community-team-bounces at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:qgis-community-team-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>> On Behalf Of Alexandre Neto
> Sent: 12 September 2019 12:11
> To: Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>>
> Cc: qgis-community <qgis-community-team at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:qgis-community-team at lists.osgeo.org>>; Tom Chadwin <tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk <mailto:tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk>>
> Subject: Re: [Qgis-community-team] [Qgis-user] [Qgis-psc] User question of the month
> 
>  
> 
> Hi,
> 
>  
> 
> It's done for Portuguese
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for putting it together,
> 
>  
> 
> Alex
> 
>  
> 
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 8:29 AM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> Everyone who sent me their user name should now have an invitation to edit. Alex already successfully added the Ukrainian translation. Please add yours.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 3:22 PM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> Please create an account at https://kf.kobotoolbox.org <https://kf.kobotoolbox.org/>  and send me your user name so I can give you editing rights.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 11:53 PM Alexandre Neto <senhor.neto at gmail.com <mailto:senhor.neto at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> This is a very long thread, can you please re-share the link for translations?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks
> 
>  
> 
> A terça, 10/09/2019, 21:31, Ismail Sunni <imajimatika at gmail.com <mailto:imajimatika at gmail.com>> escreveu:
> 
> Hi Anita,
> 
>  
> 
> I am interested to translate it to Bahasa Indonesia.
> 
>  
> 
> Hopefully, there will be more people answering the user question of the month, especially from Indonesia.
> 
>  
> 
> Best regards
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 19:35 Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
>  
> 
> This is a call for translators!
> 
>  
> 
> I've set up the questionnaire with Harrissou's questions on Kobotoolbox. If you want to localize the questions, let me know and I'll give you editing rights. 
> 
>  
> 
> The questionnaire will be published on Sunday.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 11:58 AM DelazJ <delazj at gmail.com <mailto:delazj at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> Hi Anita,
> 
> Based on the earlier discussion, this is what I end up with (I rearrange the questions):
> 
>  
> 
> 1. What is your first source of information on how to use QGIS features or solve problems?
> - QGIS User Manual, Stack Exchange, QGIS mailing lists, a regional forum,
> search engine, social network, other
> 
> 2. On average, how often do you try to find information on QGIS features or solve problems?
> - daily, 2-3 times per week, once per week, 2-3 times per month, monthly,
> less often, never
> 
>  
> 
> 3. If/when you use the official QGIS documentation to learn how to use QGIS features or solve problems, does it answer your
> needs?
> -always, often, sometimes, rarely, never, I don't use the official
> documentation
> 
>  
> 
> 4. On average, how often do you use the official QGIS documentation to find information on QGIS features or solve problems?
> - daily, 2-3 times per week, once per week, 2-3 times per month, monthly,
> less often, never
> 
> (selecting "I don't use the official documentation" in question 3 would hide this question)
> 
> 5. Suggestions for improvements or other comments on the official QGIS documentation:
> - textarea
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Harrissou
> 
>  
> 
> Le jeu. 29 août 2019 à 13:55, Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> a écrit :
> 
> Since this topic has come up again on a different thread (and we should soon have a better way to distribute links to our questionnaires) I'd like to encourage you to send me the questions you'd like to run.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 8:54 PM Anita Graser <anitagraser at gmx.at <mailto:anitagraser at gmx.at>> wrote:
> 
> Hi Tom and Harrissou, 
> 
>  
> 
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 12:05 PM Tom Chadwin <tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk <mailto:tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk>> wrote:
> 
> Better, I think, repeating that change across to the other questions using
> the same phrase.
> 
>  
> 
> If you finalize the questions, we could run them this month.
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anita
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
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> --
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> 
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> 
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>  
> Tom Chadwin, ICT Manager
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