|
CENTRAL PARK TRACK
CLUB
WEB USER SURVEY # 1 RESULTS
During a one week period between October 11th and October 18th,
1998, we instituted a survey amongst our mailing list members.
The survey was restricted to these people, because we can notify
them to complete the survey within the established time frame.
For this inaugural survey, we asked three simple questions (see
copy of survey).
****************************
For the first question, we asked people to rate the major sections
of our web site as 'Excellent', 'Very Good', 'Fair' or 'Poor'.
This is a way for us to find out what people like on our web site.
Here are the survey results.
|
Section
|
% Rate as Excellent |
%Rate as Very Good |
| Club News |
88% |
12% |
| Race Results |
75% |
25% |
| Famous People, Famous Sayings |
75% |
25% |
| CPTC People On The Web |
38% |
50% |
| Karel Matousek Home Page |
40% |
60% |
| Fritz Mueller Home Page |
40% |
60% |
| Alan Ruben Home Page |
60% |
40% |
| Frank Schiro Home Page |
20% |
60% |
| Photo Gallery |
57% |
28% |
| Club History |
83% |
17% |
| Links |
75% |
13% |
We learned the following things:-
- The Club News page is the most important page.
People come to this site for information, notwithstanding the
entertainment values.
- The Club History page is important in providing people
with some sense of history, which is otherwise relegated to oral
folklore. These pages are not updated regularly, so we were
surprised that they were liked even more than our regularly updated
pages such as Famous Sayings and Race Results.
- The CPTC People On The Web page is somewhat weak, because
the material is rather uneven and irregular. But we have
no control over which members appear on the web in other contexts.
- The Member Home Pages are also weak, because you would
have to know these people personally to appreciate them; also,
the pages are not updated regularly either.
- We were surprised at the low appreciation of the Photo Gallery.
Here, we are probably victims of our own success. At this
point, we have close to 1000 photographs posted on the web site.
It may simply take too much time for people to look at all these
large image files. We have seen this phenomenon with our
web log analysis, in that people will look at only a subset of
photos out of each newly posted set. Still, any individual
photograph is very important for the individual(s) appearing in
it.
- We were also surprised that the Links page is as popular
as our own feature pages. This means that there must still
be information out there that we do not provide ourselves, such
as Runner's World and other running-related e-zines.
****************************
In our second question, we asked, "If we had to build another
home page, which one of the following people should it be for?"
To assist the respondent, we offered a candidate list with the names
of Tesfaye Bekele, Sid Howard, Audrey Kingsley,
Mary V. Rosado, Tony Ruiz, Jud Santos.
The respondent was also permitted to specify some other person,
or even to check the option 'Nobody --- please, no more!'
We also stated very clearly that 'the webmaster is precluded from
such self-aggrandization'.
As shown in the results table, the clear winner is Sid Howard.
|
Candidate
|
%Votes |
| Sid Howard |
57% |
| Audrey Kingsley |
15% |
| Jud Santos |
14% |
| Tony Ruiz |
14% |
Let us hope that Sid does not lose too much sleep at night over
this dreadful prospect ...
****************************
Our third and final question is an open-ended question in which
we invited people to say whatever they wanted to. Now, it
happens that we don't know the names of our respondents and they
were very careful in what they say. But that does not mean
that we cannot determine who they were on the basis of the content
and style of their comments. Here are our analyses:
| Comment |
Analysis |
| "Should we find a friend for Bidu?" |
This has to be Audrey Kingsley, who has
adopted our hyperactive tail-wagging guard dog Bidu
for her own desktop. This request is fulfilled six times
over at the bottom of this page. |
| "Anything I say can and will be used against
me!!!" |
This has to be Ross Galitsky, since everything
that he has ever said (and even not said) has been used against
him so far. (See Famous Saying # 22) |
| "Put a caption (truthful or not) on the
pictures on top of the Club News page." |
On one hand, this is someone who probably does
not know the faces of all those people. On the other
hand, this is someone who harbors a great deal of skepticism
about the truthfulness of our information. Probably
someone from out of town, like Jonathan Federman? |
| "Like the R.E.M. song goes, 'Oh no, I've
said too much, I've said enough...'" |
R.E.M.? This has to be that Jud Santos.
(Watch! Jud will write us a note to say that
he is insulted ...) |
| "Keep up the great work!" |
This reeks of insincerity! A transparent
diversionary tactic! We will figure out who you really
are yet! |
| "No comment." |
Really? I got your IP number and I'll
decode it ... I swear that I'll nail you if that is the last
thing I do ... |
| "I have been running with you for a few
months now, but have never received membership materials.
Can I do something about that? Thanks." |
There must be dozens and dozens of people who
fall into this category ... impossible to tell ... |
Once the above was published, the denials came in:
- Ross Galitsky wrote: "Clever deduction, but maybe
too clever. I left the comments section of your web survey
blank! But congratulations on your long memory and browser capability
for finding that old quote."
- Audrey Kingsley said: "You were wrong! I didn't
make that comment."
Remember, if you wish to participate in future surveys, please
make sure that you subscribe to our mailing list (see the form at
the bottom of our home page).
|
