The Results Are In — Survey & Comments
After conducting a round of surveys with the W3C community and affiliated members, we have come up with answers to some critical questions that will help us understand the user base and target audience and their interactions with W3C specifications. The survey was sent out to the W3C community, including developers from Google Chrome, Mozilla and other prestigious developer circles who interact with the W3C specifications.
Survey Results
We have received more than 130 responses to the survey questionnaires. Of those, around 90% of the respondents had used W3C specifications at the time of the survey. Around 39% of respondents use the specifications on a daily basis, while 33% of respondents use them on a weekly basis, 23.5% of respondents use the specifications on a monthly basis and the rest on a yearly basis.
The majority of the users fall into these four main categories:
- Web Authors: 19.1% of users
- Specification Authors: 10.4% of users
- Implementers: 10.4% of users
- Testers: 10.4% of users
Respondents prefer to work on the specifications using desktop or laptop computers, while some respondents prefer to view them on the mobile phones or tablets. Others print them for convenience.
We asked respondents to rate their level of agreement with two statements. These statements serve to set a baseline for the existing specification to which we can compare future scores. With an average score of 3.08, respondents were basically neutral about the statement, “It’s easy to find the information I need.” With an average score of 3.43, respondents lean a little bit better than neutral on the statement, “I would recommend the specifications to a friend.”
Constructive Feedback
The open-ended feedback that we received pointed to the need for improvement of navigation and readability. Respondents also asked for more examples and clear definitions to be added to be added to the specifications.
We thank you for your time and patience in filling out the survey to help us understand your motivations and pain points when using the specifications. We look forward to working with you all to provide a solution that may benefit all users of the W3C.
