67 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
67 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
|
_# MapComplete user census
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
As you noticed, MapComplete ran a user survey during january.
|
||
|
|
What did it tell us?
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The use survey had a few goals, namely:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
- discovering what demographics are using MapComplete
|
||
|
|
- and discovering what needs and wants are still there
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Basic demography
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The first question is of course: who did fill out the survey? If we look to the numbers, a clear pattern emerges.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The age distribution looks pretty normal - there is a clear peak around the bucket `30-40`, which falls down left and right.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The gender is not as balanced. Unsurprisingly, the majority of respondents is male:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Around 10% of respondents identified as female; and 11 people identified as having a non-conventional gender.
|
||
|
|
Note that there was _no_ option for trans people - they could choose between either their chosen gender or use the 'something else'. As such, I don't know how much trans people are in each category. One person, identifying as female however stated to be trans (and I suspect that there are a few more).
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
This tells us that women are vastly underrepresented in this survey - ideally they would be around 50%.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
In the same vein, non conventional genders are vastly overrepresented in this survey. [According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender#Population_figures), about 0.5% of adult populations identify as non-binary. With 11 out of 177 respondents using a non-conventional gender, we end up at 6%. It seems like we are a pretty welcome community - or at least I hope so.
|
||
|
|
Fun fact: it's a bit of a running joke that many trans-people are programmers. 7 out of 11 of the respondents who picked genderqueer/non-binary/something-else also indicated that they _are developers or studied computer science_, so this stereotype holds up...
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
But this might also be a statistical bias. 55% of _all_ respondents indicated that they are programmers:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Now, this is a bit painful. MapComplete aims to be an easy-to-use tool for non-technical users. The survey clearly failed to reach these people.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
In practice, the communication about the survey should reach respondents which then, need to be motivated to fill out this survey.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
As the survey has been promoted via [Mastodon](https://en.osm.town/@mapcomplete), this probably had a major influence: Mastodon has a userbase which is both very developer-oriented but also quite queer and has (relatively) many transgender and genderqueer people. As the post about the survey gained a lot of traction there, I suspect many found the survey via that channel.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
A second important effect is the language. The invitation for the survey and the survey itself where all in english. Developers are generally fluent in English, but a non-technical user might not bother with a survey that is not in their native tongue.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
At last, some people from minorities are less likely to fill out surveys ([source](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED501717.pdf)). I tried to counter this by explicitly inviting those groups to fill out the survey in the request, but this psychological effect is very hard to measure.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
As such, while I do think that the data is mostly representative, I think that less-technical people are underrepresented.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
### Identity
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
A last question in the 'demograpy'-set was "how would you describe yourself?" - a notoriously hard question which only 66 persons (37%) answered.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
This question is intentionally open-ended, as people will state what _they_ find important in live.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
18 of them mentioned to be a map lover or OSM lover, 15 self-identified as being a 'techie', 'developer', 'engineer' or similar. 8 found Open Source-software important; 7 mentioned to be interested in environmentalism, urbanism, transportation and/or political issues. Other notable mentions were to be involved (professionally) with GIS. Other notable categories are teachers (2), cyclists (4) and climbers (2).
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Reach
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
How did people get in touch with MC? How well-known is it?
|
||
|
|
How did SC and ED gain users quickly?
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Usecases
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Why do people use MC?
|
||
|
|
What would people still want?
|
||
|
|
What issues do they report?
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Good questions to ask next year?
|