question

4. Pilot Project

Survey:

A questionnaire was added to the website and is announced on the ZooLex homepage. The questionnaire has four sections:

Section A relates to the particulars of the respondent to be filled in voluntarily.
Section B relates to the performance of the website, dealing with its organization and layout.
Section C relates to the usefulness of the website as pertaining to its topics and features, information and links.
Section D relates to the respondents' anticipated active participation in ZooLex.

Multiple choice questions are complemented by a space for comments.

The questionnaire was tested for clearness with some German and English speaking persons before adding the final version to the website.

On August 30, a range of zoo professionals and non-specialists was contacted by email and mail and asked to visit the ZooLex website on the internet and to fill in the questionnaire. The sample included professionals from Australia, Austria, Germany, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States:

10 zoo directors,
10 zoo employees,
9 zoo designers (architects and landscape architects),
5 animal conservation related organizations, and
12 persons not related to zoos.

On November 11, I sent out emails to remind some key respondents to submit the questionnaire and invited an additional 3 zoo directors, 2 zoo employees and 6 zoo designers. All in all, 57 persons, including 40 zoo professionals were invited to visit the ZooLex website:

Contacts	Zoo Professionals			Others
Groups	Directors	Employees	Designers	Organizations	Students	Others
Emails on August 30	3	10	8	4	2	9
Letters on August 30	7	0	1	1	0	1
Emails on November 11	3	2	6	0	0	0
Contacts to Groups	40			17
Total Contacts	57
Potential Visitors	About 40

Among the 57 persons I invited to visit ZooLex, there were 15 to 20 persons that I had invited as good protocol, not because I expected them to answer the questionnaire. I did not expect organizations to answer the questionnaire. I also estimate that several persons contacted are not likely to use a computer or the internet at all. Out of 57 persons that I had invited, an estimated 40 were potential visitors of ZooLex.

More than 500 persons from all over the world visited ZooLex from October to December 1999. Since the address of the website was not added to any search engines, no random visitors can be expected to have visited. All visitors must have been actively invited by me and my contacts respectively.

The survey produced 39 valid responses as of January 2000. Among the total 39 respondents, there are 17 that I know personally. These are persons that have been dealing with zoos for some time and may become regular visitors of ZooLex. They are my key respondents regarding the qualitative evaluation of the sample website.

This means that my 17 key respondents make up 30 % of those people that I had invited (57) or 40 %, of the estimated potential visitors (40), considering the calculated non-respondents. 39 total respondents is about 8 % of total visitors (about 500) to ZooLex.

Responses by Dec. 1999 Zoo Professionals Others Total

Groups Directors Employees Designers Students Others All

Key Respondents 3 4 6 3 1 17

Non-Key Respondents 1 5 4 3 9 22

All Respondents 4 9 10 6 10 39

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Last modification: 2000/2/27