Learning About Our Product Users

Thanks to you, our survey was a great success! We’ve summarized the results in this post, and our analysis of your responses will help determine our strategic direction for 2020 and beyond. It is critical that we continually seek customer feedback as we strive to fulfill the learning objectives of an increasingly diverse user base.

A randomly chosen winner was emailed a $100 Amazon gift card. We wish that we could reward everyone because your input means so much to us, but we’ll have to settle for reporting the results and extending our heartfelt thanks.

Who responded?

We got a good representation of the people who use our products. A majority of survey participants indicated that they use assistive or access technology daily, and most of the remainder said several times a week. One-fifth were teachers/trainers/instructors, and over a third said that they used our products on the job. We have already begun implementing plans to provide training for teachers, and we’ll also continue to focus on those who are employed.

How do users prefer to access info?

So how do our users prefer to access how-to information, such as steps for performing a procedure? The unequivocal answer was online resources—product help, searchable documentation, and knowledgebase articles. Also popular were YouTube videos, the Freedom Scientific website, and Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) training files.

Only 11 percent liked printed books, so our users are sending us a clear message that they want information accessible online. In response, we are developing increasingly interconnected online resources, such as the migration of ZoomText help and training materials to our Freedom Scientific Training page.

Bar chart showing preferred methods of accessing information. Product help is most preferred, followed by online doc and other online resources.

How do users find info?

We learned that the first thing that users do when they have a question is try a search engine, then next search the online help. Therefore, we are simplifying searches by consolidating resources on our Training page. We are also cross-referencing our learning materials, such as placing a link on a Focus webinar page that takes you to a YouTube video on the Focus display.

Pie chart showing what users do when they have a question about a product. The most popular answer was using a search engine, followed by searching the online help.

Committed to our mission

This data from this survey supports our accomplishments over the past year and reinforces that we are moving in the right direction. We are committed to developing more robust and user-friendly training and documentation, exemplified by projects we completed recently:

A personal touch

Almost a quarter of our respondents took the time to comment at the end of the survey, and we value every remark. We will continue to collect data as we connect with our product users through our new mailing list, FSOpenLine, our blog, and Twitter (follow us at @freedomsci). And we invite you to email us anytime at [email protected].

3 Comments

  1. Eric Damery

    Bravo to the Training and documentation team. You are making a real difference helping users expanding their skills

  2. Claus Thøgersen

    There is one area I really miss in this post: international users! I did not complete the survey myself witch I of course should have done. With FS products being trnaslated into so many languages, the problem of making the new online materieals available for users of products in other languages than English should be addressed. yes many of us are able to use the English materials, but many users do not have the knowledge of English needed to do so. Maybe automated translating systems can be used, it would be better than nothing, and maybe there are systems that perform better than what is available on a pc or smartphone. One specific thing that I think could be addressed is the online what’s new pages. If you want to read older enhancements for jaws earlier than 2020 you need to go to the online site, and here you can only read the English what’s new information, even though this information is localized in the earlier version you have installed on your pc.

  3. Okello Charles

    Truth be told is that, The training is well but, My wish is that If it is possible for the webinars that were recorded on each individial product like word be organised like those in Office 2016 and below.
    This is advantageous for those who want to conduct detailed learning of the respective package.
    Thanks!

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