Background

In the #training Slack channel, the idea for a Needs Analysis raised since early 2019. A more detailed idea of how to approach this came in Slack in mid 2021 and a post titled Learn WordPress: User Survey & Focus Groups reached out to the community to provide their anonymous feedback through a survey and more detailed input via focus groups about the Learn.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/ website.

The work from that project led to this Design Recommendations Report (DRR).

In January 2021, the idea to brainstorm a new learning needs analysis was brought up in the team. During the Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe 2022, the Training Team table began discussing what this could look like. We created this rough draft document to help us shape the questions and define the objective of the needs analysis. From this, the team drafted a Google form document with the questions.

While creating the initial survey drafts, the team noticed that there was too much branching occurring as we focused on creating questions aimed at who we thought are the target audience  (e.g.,. if dev -> this question etc). In the end, we felt that it would be better to take a step back and identify first the target audiences and then design specific surveys for the different audiences to gain more details about the different needs people may have from the resources at Learn.WordPress.org. This is how the Individual Learner Survey was born as a first step to a more holistic and targeted Needs Analysis survey.

The Individual Learner survey first existed on Google Forms, but due to GDPR concerns we worked to move it to CrowdSignal. The Individual Learner Survey was launched on Crowdsignal on September 7, 2022.

Project Objectives

• Gather data from the community to determine their WordPress learning needs.
• Analyze the gathered data to formulate an action plan for the resources on Learn WordPress.
• Establish a set of standards for instructional content on Learn WordPress.

Stakeholders

Who are we doing the Needs Analysis for: users, extenders, influencers, and contributors of the WordPress project.

Also visit the post: Who can Learn WordPress help

• Users
• WordPress Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. Software Project
  • Project executive leadership
  • Make teams
  • Contributors
  • MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. and WordCamp organizers
• Extenders with businesses related to WordPress
• Informal WordPress community gatherings (social media groups, owned forums/events/SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/./socials)

Representation of Stakeholders

The Training Team aspire to have representation from diverse organizations and individuals within and beyond the WordPress ecosystem, including:

• Scale/sizes of organizations
• Locales
• Freelancer marketplace
• Enterprise/agency
• Product and service providers (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/theme devs, SaaS, Integrations)
• WP Communicators (bloggers, podcasters, hosts)
• Hiring organizations (contract or employer)
• External trainers/instructors 
• AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), Internationalization, and Diversity
• Open Source Software

Tasks

• Planning
• Marketing the survey
• Conducting the survey
• Reviewing and analyzing the survey data
• Discussing the results
• Publishing next steps

Active Project

For more information on the active Needs Analysis project, please see the upcoming Project Thread (to be published shortly after this post. I will edit this post to include the link when it is published).

Thank you to the following people for contributing to this post: @piyopiyofox, @hlashbrooke, @webcommsat, @courane01, @azhiyadev

#needs-analysis

#learn-wordpress, #project-overview