[Gnumed-devel] Surveying 'real users' (was Re:switching tabs in demog notebook)

[Busser, Jim]

On 2011-11-11, at 12:58 PM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> Re "if no one but ... speaks up" -- while I can follow the
> argument I'm also pretty sure the majority of real users
> does NOT follow this list.

What role shall we give to 'real users' who do not interact with the people on 
the list?

Possibly this 'majority' is mostly in contact with you privately, in which case 
you could privately check with them anything you were unsure about.

This leaves only those 'real users' who are in contact with no-one among us.

What 'voice' and what importance shall we assign to them, in decision-making, 
if we cannot contact them, and if they do not contact us?

If this group is important, perhaps beginning with 1.2 and database v17 (or 
even client 1.1.4 and v16) we can provide the ability to give feedback. It 
could work like this:

- the client checks whether feedback had already been prompted for the current 
database version
- the client would not care which copy of the client, or which user, had been 
prompted
- the client cares only if there exists a record of the prompt having been 
issued *once* per database upgrade
- fixups to a database version would not count, only full increments

So how it could work is

- client queries 'what is the current v of the database? --> v16
- client queries 'what v of the database issued a feedback prompt?' --> null 
default
- if db_v_feedback is NULL or db_v_feedback < v_current
        --> set db_v_feedback to v16 and do not repeat until v17
        --> launch URL

(here is a simple candidate Google docs form:

        
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dExTVGFral95eWFLSTQ1RHZ5MFF1Q2c6MQ#gid=0
)

I think once per db upgrade (which is only about 2x per year) is not excessive. 
The worst that can happen is people ignore and close the window. Even so (e.g. 
if there is screaming) a config option could be developed if it were desired to 
enable to avoid this prompt.

Thoughts?

-- Jim