2007 Web Design Survey Reveals Shocking Truth About Web Industry
Saturday, October 20, 2007A List Apart recently released the results of their 2007 Web Design Survey as well as offering the raw data for download. While the "official" results were mildly interesting here at Dexagogo, I was not satisfied. As I examined the data a disturbing aspect of the web industry was revealed; one I'm sure A List Apart would rather be kept hidden. Well, all I have to say is this: this is web 2.0, baby, and information needs to be free. So I've taken on the responsibility of revealing the truth for all to see. The web industry is clearly one that enjoys quite a bit of navel gazing, and after this I expect many a navel to be stripped naked under the harsh scrutiny this will surely provoke. So, are you ready for the truth?
The shocking truth is this: 50.4% of people working in the web industry waste their employers time by filling out self-absorbed surveys during office hours! There is no hiding the cold, hard truth:
The above chart illustrates the overall percentage of surveys completed during office hours: Monday - Friday between 8AM and 6PM.
And it get's worse. I wanted to see just how deep this problem runs within the industry, so I developed the following bar chart which displays the percentage of surveys completed during office hours by employer type:
I couldn't believe my own eyes. The worst offenders for wasting their employers time were those working for NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS. Yes folks, those who can least afford it paid for the self-obsession of their own employees. Oh and don't think you can excuse those under the "self-employed" category; I expect they just billed the time to their clients.
For shame people, for shame.
10 Comments
That's funny but kind of sad if geek skyving involves completing a work related survey!
How much time is spent on blog comments, forums, messaging and the flavour of the month social network?
When I was a wee lass people worked from 9-5. Those extra hours must be used for something ;-)
Maybe they all get their work done so quickly that they have nothing better to do?
@Montoya, riiiiiiight.
You are my new hero.
Right, my forum(about web standards) is very active during daytime, too.
Hi Andrew,
I think you need to be really careful when looking at statistics that you don't make any assumptions. Sure, it appears that 50% of people filled in the survey on their employer's time, however do you know if these stats were recalculated depending on which time zone each respondent was in when they filled in the survey? I suspect that the clock was on US time when it was logging responses and yet responses were received from all around the world. Further, you don't know whether those that completed the survey between 8am - 6pm didn't do it during a lunch break (just as I'm responding to your blog post in my lunch break).
In addition, on your point about non-profit employees being the worst offenders, what you failed to disclose was that there is a higher number of people in the non-profit sector working less than 30 hours (i.e. part-time) than in other sectors, so therefore the non-profit employees who filled in the survey may well have been doing it in their own time, albeit between 8am - 6pm.
It's unfortunate that you think the ALA survey is self-absorbed. I think the survey is very important as the results can now be used by industry organisations to help promote the web industry and the great work that web professionals do ... and people such as yourself will benefit from that work.
Disclosure: I am a non-profit webby.
Its called research
@Priscilla, I think it would be true to say we've both made incorrect assumptions :)
We're not robots you know. I don't think that there's a single person I know who clocks in at 8am on the minute every day and starts tapping the keys, then come 6pm stands up, walks to the door and says in a robotic voice - "See you all tomorrow". I don't see whats so shocking about it.
Who uses the toilet during working hours? Cause if you do - that's 10 minutes of productivity per visit lost. Tsk tsk.
What's even more shocking Ezra, is your total lack of a sense of humour!