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I am drafting a user experience survey for an internal application...I have never really done anything with user experience before, but from a data analysis point of view I would think demographic questions preceding UX questions would be beneficial. My survey is broken down into usefulness, system performance, satisfaction, ease of use.

User profile type questions include:

Enter job title __
What are the most common operations that you perform in appx?
I have used appx for __ years.
On a given week I log into appx __ times.

Is this something that should be included?

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  • My stock answer: avoid asking for any info that you won't use. But it sounds like you're be asking whether there's a use for demographic info.
    – Ken Mohnkern
    Dec 13, 2016 at 19:31
  • @KenMohnkern Yep, "if there is a use for demographic info" is my question :)...From what I have seen how long a person uses appx influences how useful they perceive appx to be.
    – anshanno
    Dec 13, 2016 at 19:36

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We're all human, but socialisation typically separates us into groups by sex membership, skin color, ethnicity, national identity, physical capability, cognitive capability, and class.

So yes, it is important to capture demographic information since if you don't, you won't know whether there are important group differences in your results, never mind what those differences are.

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  • Thanks! From what I have seen / found on google, how long a person uses an app influences their perception of usability the most. Do you know of any other reading on the subject matter?
    – anshanno
    Dec 13, 2016 at 19:38
  • Not regarding apps specifically, but if you look at the developmental and cognitive literatures, you'll find that we can't stop learning even when we try. The only way to avoid learning about something specific is to use our existing knowledge so infrequently that the internal associative links decay and we "forget" the knowledge. As Penfield demonstrated in the late '40s, we don't actually forget, but we do stop being able to find things in our heads without special strategies. But when we use a tool frequently enough, we automatically and involuntarily increase our knowledge.
    – MMacD
    Dec 13, 2016 at 19:56

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