KDE Perceived Quality Survey (PESQUS) still going on.

[Human Aspects of Software Engineering]

Corrado:

You already received a reply for this, but the first e-mail went to the list 
so, we thought replying to the list would be appropriate. Your questions are 
answered below.

Again, KDE users, please go to 

http://www.umbc.edu/hase/kdesurvey.html

and fill out survey if you haven't done so

Corrado, thanks for the thoughtful comments and questions. Here are some 
answers:


On Tuesday 18 January 2005 07:38, rec.sea at btopenworld.com wrote:
> Dear Hase,
>
> 1)First of all, I think you should sign yourself with a contact name,
> qualification, e-mail and contact number, in order to give credibility to
> your survey. You should add an help page briefly explaining who is
> conducting the survey,and what is the academic level (is this a student
> dissertation for a BA? for an MSc? for a PhD? is this a survey for an
> academic research leading to publications?). This is my opinion, not a
> "must".

This is an academic research that could "potentially" lead to publications. 
There is no guarantee. There are several factors affecting the significance 
of findings. Dissertation? At this stage no. We have some Ph.D. students that 
can consider this area though.

For more information about us and contact info, please visit:

http://www.umbc.edu/hase

>
> 3)Moreover, you must declare the funding sources of your research (i.e. if
> your research is independently funded or funded by organisations which have
> vested interests in the research). This is compulsory for all serious,
> professional and unbiased academic researches all over the world (I do not
> know in you country). This is definitively a "must" and not simply my
> opinion.

No funding sources except the State of Maryland through University System of 
Maryland (normal university resources equipment, etc.). There is no special 
grant from any company, governmental agency, profit or non-profit 
organization. There is definitely "NO" vested interest.


>
> 2)Furthermore, a quality survey should only include questions without
> potential bias, i.e. questions not leading to pre-determined statistical
> results, and questions for cross checking results of previous questions.
> The questions in your research give the strong impression of being "leading
> questions", and you focus the research on "negative" aspects (crashes /
> software bugs), with a comparatively minimal and very generic section on
> positive aspects. This can hardly be classified as "perceived quality".
> Perceived quality focuses indeed on measures of satisfaction, not of
> dissatisfaction (which are not necessarily related). One could indeed be
> very satisfied with some characteristics and performances, but very
> dissatisfied with some bugs. One could eventually be very satisfied
> (unsatisfied) compared to some other alternatives but not satisfied
> (unsatisfied) as such. It may well be that I got confused by the title of
> your research.It depends on what you are trying to mesure.
>
As you said, we are checking for reliability, dependability, correctness, 
performance, and correct operation aspects of quality. There are of course 
other aspects, for example usability.The scope has to be limited. Regarding 
to the focus on the negative aspects, we simply do not agree, there were 
options in each question to accommodate a wide range of users from extremely 
satisfied to exteremel unsatisfied.


> Looking forward to receiving an answer to my questions / comments to the
> points I raised.
>
> Best regards


Thanks a lot, please stay in touch with us. Send an e-mail from time to time.


>
> Corrado Topi
> Director of Strategy
> -.-
> symbulos - ethical services for your organisation
> http://www.symbulos.com
>
> On Tuesday 18 Jan 2005 03:44, Human Aspects of Software Engineering wrote:
> > Dear KDE users,
> >
> > We continue to collect responses for the Perceived Quality Survey for
> > KDE. We would really appreciate it if you could follow the link below and
> > fill out this survey, if you haven't done so:
> >
> > http://www.umbc.edu/hase/kdesurvey.html
> >
> > We are planning to turn the results of this survey into some useful
> > feedback to improve the overall quality of KDE even more.
> >
> > Many thanks for your help.
> >
> > HASE
> > HUMAN ASPECTS of SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
> > INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT, UMBC
> > hase at umbc.edu
> >
> > P.S. Two notes upon previous questions:
> >
> > 1. KDE, of course, includes many applications, please indicate your
> > opinion about the components that are directly related to the desktop
> > functionality of KDE.
> >
> > 2. Some of the developers mentioned that KDE might fail because
> > of the underlying software or hardware problems. This is possible,
> > however, we think that users do understand the problems with the
> > underlying layers after a reasonable time of computer use. Therefore, we
> > rely on the user's opinions.
> > ___________________________________________________
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> > Account management:  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde.
> > Archives: http://lists.kde.org/.
> > More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.
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