Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Journal of Computer Networks and ISDN Systems
Volume
27
Issue
6
Publication Date
4-1995
First Page
809
Last Page
822
Abstract
This paper presents the initial results from the second World-Wide Web User Survey, which was advertised and made available to the Web user population for 38 days during October and November 1994. The survey is built on our architecture and Web technologies, which together offer a number of technical and surveying advantages. In particular, our architecture supports the use of adaptive questions, and supports methods for tracking users' responses across different surveys, allowing more in-depth analyses of survey responses. The present survey was composed of three question categories: general demographic questions, browsing usage, and questions for Web information authors. In addition, we added an additional, experimental category addressing users' attitudes toward commercial use of the Web and the Internet. In just over one month, we received over 18,000 total responses to the combined surveys. To the best of our knowledge, the number of respondents and range of questions make this survey the most reliable and comprehensive characterization of WWW users to date. It will be interesting to see if and how the user trends shown in our results change as the Web gains in global access and popularity.
Recommended Citation
Pitkow, J. & Recker, M. (1995). Using the Web as a survey tool: Results from the second WWW user survey. Journal of Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 27(6), 809-822.
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Instructional Media Design Commons
Comments
Note that Mimi Recker was a research scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology when she worked on this article.
Originally published by Elsevier. This article can be viewed online through Computer Networks & ISDN Systems . This paper was part of the Third International World-Wide Web Conference held in Darmstadt, Germany. This article can also be viewed through GVU's WWW User Surveys. Note: The second author's name was published as Margaret Recker.