Feedback on User Experience, Help Needed

I am a professor at Western Kentucky University doing some academic research on Second Life. If you enjoy talking about your Second Life experience and have some time to give (or to kill), the survey takes at most 10 minutes and collects no private or identifying information. Responses would only ever be used for academic purposes and information would be presented in the aggregate.

If you wouldn't mind taking the survey, the link is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=1pE7BNuzGfh2fNASoyW3Rw_3d_3d

Your help would be sincerely appreciated, and I'd be glad to post summary results here when the data is analyzed if there's any interest in discussion of the findings of the survey!

Thanks again,
Dr. Joanna Phillips, Western Kentucky University

Gee, a survey about SL. What a novel concept.

@LL: Could we please have a separate forum category for surveys?

@OP: No matter your intentions, most residents are getting fed up with these surveys. Really fed up. You might not like this answer, but it is the reality.

http://www.photoshoptalent.com/images/contests/white%20rat/fullsize/white%20rat_475dcd579f7fe.jpg
I would suggest you talk to people in world. We are only a few hundred out of thousands and not really representative of sl as a whole.

1. If you're gonna make an online survey about SL, please make it actually ABOUT SL. Having the first question be

The Online Role-playing environment/Virtual World I will be discussing in this survey is: World-of-Warcraft Second Life

is a bad start.

2. Many questions in the survey might apply to WOW, but they sure don't apply to SL. Hint: SL is not a "game".

3. If you must include questions like "I do a lot of research before I start a new character/avatar." or "I am fascinated by the story or background of the game/world." you should at least have a n/a option.

4. Intuitively, most people would think "Strongly Agree" would be the left side of the continuum and "Strongly Disagree" would be the right. I got all the way to page 3 before I realized it was backwards.

5. "Male" or "Female" as choices for gender are not sufficient.

6. WARNING TO OTHERS - This survey is REALLY about Advertising in SL. You won't find this out for yourselves until you get to page 4.

7. The gender question is repeated. Why ask twice?

8. There IS a request for personal information on page 4. The survey asks for age, household income, marital status.

9. NO

Looks like:

Has anyone actually posted the results of one of these surveys yet like they all promise??

For the life of me I can not understand how someone thinks they are going to get any meaningful information from such a small subset of people who would actually want to participate. The results would have to come out heavily skewed. And there is no possible way that it will show what Second Life is actually like. It would be kind of like a celibate virgin trying to take over for Dr. Ruth.

The only way to learn anything about SL is to actually rez yourself in world, explore and ask people there questions.

Great pic, Damien

this is like deja vu.........wow.. lets study the deviants in SL.........

Agreed. Statistically, this is known as a convenience or voluntary sample, and it's neither random nor representative.

No

NOOOOOOO!!!!!

No No No Nononono NO! NO! NO!
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Sorry, but no.

One is about your character/avatar, one is about you.

One is about your character/avatar, one is about you.
Yes, the one who revealed that 30% of males at least occasionally played females, and 2% of females at least occasionally played males.

Jesus Christ on a Pony! It never ends. What is making all you people decide to use SL as a study project, and why don't you spend some time actually using it before you start prodding the regular users?

You should volunteer to take her in world and show her the ropes... or duct tape in your case.

Can we start at your place?

Knock yourself out. I'll leave the keys to the dungeon under the doormat.

ughh i was hoping this one would die already.... shoot.. i made a place in the threads for people who want to psycho analyze us.. but nobody is using it......lol

I really will post my results! I swear!

Uh huh. I am sure you will lmao.

And who would that be , this week?

I'd have to check the work schedule.

I took some people to task for the flip answers on the Swansea survey... but I'll admit it.. you guys are right. It IS never ending and most surveys presuppose that SL is populated mainly by gamers, deviants, n'er do wells, and 35 yr olds living in their parents' basement.

I think I'm fairly justified in doubting you.