FSE Program Check In Survey Results

On April 5th, I shared a 3 question survey to help improve the FSE Outreach Program by pausing to ask for feedback so that I can better understand current levels of participation, what you all want to see more of, and what can help folks contribute more. Thank you to the 16 people who took the time to share their feedback! If you are reading this and didn’t answer the survey, feel free to respond here with additional thoughts as I’m always looking to improve how this program works.

Full Results

If you want to read the full reports, I have included two options below. Keep in mind that I intentionally removed the final question that listed people who optionally included their WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ usernames for follow up.

What top 3 items would be most helpful to have covered in streams or zoom calls?

The top 3 items were as follows:

1. Deep dive into Issues/PRs/Designs of interest that relate to FSE (12 votes)
2. FSE open question & answer sessions (10 votes)
3. Debriefing the feedback summary posts from the calls for testing (8 votes)

There were very clear winners here!

What would help you be more active in the FSE Outreach Program?

1. “Office Hours” to troubleshoot testing issues (7 votes)
2. More time to test (6 votes)
3. Help setting up a test site (3 votes)
4. More detail in test instructions (3 votes)
5. More reminders (3 votes)

The “other option” (3 responses) mainly touched on predictability of testing calls and wanting more time/reminders/expertise. For now, I’m hesitant to set a strict timeline for the calls for testing because the testing needs are variable and partially depend on what’s ready in the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party at various release points. In time, I do expect calls for testing to become more predictable as the experience stabilizes and there are less brand new things to test.

What best describes your current participation?

1. I want to participate in the calls for testing but have been blocked due to lack of time/capacity/etc (8 votes).
2. I find it easy to participate in the calls for testing and plan to do so in the future (2 votes).
3. I joined in order to pay attention to what’s happening with FSE but don’t have interest in responding to calls for testing (2 votes).
4. I tried to help with the calls for testing but got blocked (0 votes).

The “other option” (4 responses) are as follows:

I tested many things, discovered the same issues discovered. Didn’t have enough time to go deeper with my tests

New to FSE and coming up to speed so my time can be spent testing and not setting up to test.

I don’t quite follow the script when participating. I don’t just test with TT1 blocks.

I’d like to participate as much as possible as I see FSE as a huge part of WordPress future, and yet another opportunity to give back to the community.

While I was aiming to see more people in the categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of finding it easy to participate, I’m hoping that some upcoming changes can shift this, particularly in extending the current call for testing to a three week window rather than a two week one. On a whole though, it seems like people are keen to help out here but, as seen across the WordPress project, we’re all dealing with limited time/capacity.

Next Steps/Changes

In light of this feedback, I plan to do the following:

• Continue to run hallway hangouts like this first one but, instead of just focusing on diving into issues/prs/designs, I’ll kick it off with a summary of the latest round of feedback and end with 5-10 min for people to ask questions.
• Continue sharing reminders (2 week, 1 week, final days).
• Reach out to those who left their usernames and wanted help with setting up a test site/troubleshooting testing issues. This may turn into doing true dedicated office hours but, for now, will likely turn into nudging people to share directly in the #fse-outreach-experiment or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me if they run into problems when I share reminders for the calls for testing.
• Explore extending calls for testing periods to three weeks rather than two weeks. I already did this with the latest call for testing thanks to the feedback I had already received from this survey! Continuing this will depend on what the testing needs are and if the three week testing period does increase feedback.
• Explore documenting some very simple ways to test FSE in the How to Test FSE page for those who might not have time to do a full call for testing but who still want to help.

If there are any changes/next steps you’d like me to explore, comment below and I’ll see how it fits into what I can manage. On the flip side, if you’d be interested in helping with various aspects of improving the program, let me know! I’d love to create a little team of people working to expand the capacity and reach of this outreach effort.

#fse-outreach-program, #fse-outreach-survey