Survey says: Journals, codes and magazine are tops with online visitors

Benedict Bahner
ASME News Online

The results from the recent ASME.ORG online survey are in and according to the participants, Journals and Periodicals, Codes and Standards Products, and Mechanical Engineering Magazine Online were cited as their three most-valued sections of ASME's Web site.

The ASME.ORG department — along with the Marketing department and other staff members — developed the survey in order to gather general feedback from users regarding the site, including which ASME.ORG content areas were considered most valuable by users, how often readers visited the site, and how users rated site features such as menus, Web page links, and the search engine. The department also wanted to ascertain certain user demographics, including member and nonmember site usage and whether Web visitors were primarily students or practicing engineers. The survey, which ran in January, was the second part of a project that began with feedback gathering efforts at the ASME Congress in Chicago last November.

Of the 232 people who took the survey, 91 percent were members of ASME, and the largest block of respondents were practicing engineers with more than 10 years of experience. Journals and Periodicals, Codes and Standards products, and Mechanical Engineering Magazine Online were the most mentioned when participants were asked to name the content areas they most valued.

Web visitors who took part in the online survey were entered into a drawing for $100 American Express gift certificates. The three winners were: • K. Burkhardt, USA • S. Bhar, India • J. Mootez, Tunisia

The rest of the top 10 most-valued content areas were: Job and Career Resources; Conference Papers; Member Benefits; Continuing Education Products and Services; Scholarships and Financial Aid; General Engineering News; and Paying Dues Online.

Thirty-nine percent of the survey takers indicated that they were practicing engineers with more than 10 years of experience. Students made up 30 percent of the survey respondents, while practicing engineers with fewer than 10 years of experience comprised 16 percent of the total. Most respondents said they visited the site either monthly (46 percent) or weekly (28 percent). Meanwhile, 7 percent said they visited the site at least once a day.
Responses related to finding content on the ASME.ORG site using menus, links, and the search engine were generally positive, with 77 percent indicating a good or excellent experience using the menus, 78 percent saying they had a good or excellent experience using Web page links, and 62 percent reporting a good or excellent experience with the site's search engine.

The online survey followed a program conducted at the ASME Congress last November, where the department held several user Web feedback sessions during the conference and distributed feedback forms to visitors to the ASME Pavilion on the exhibits floor. The feedback sessions drew 32 people, while 87 feedback cards were handed in at the Pavilion.

Feedback from the online survey was mostly consistent with the responses Web site staff received from their data-gathering efforts at Congress, according to Denman Wall, director of ASME.ORG.

"The biggest surprise from the online survey was the number of ASME members who participated [91%]," Wall said. Earlier online polls and surveys were usually split about 50-50, members and nonmembers." Wall added that he was pleased with the large number of experienced engineers who responded.

The survey and Congress efforts are among the first attempts to gauge the reaction of ASME.ORG users since the launch of the redesigned Web site in December 2005. "The next step, which we've already started, is to take the data and translate it into usable actions, such as making information about local resources and technical seminars easier for international and new ASME members to find on the site," Wall said. "We'll be doing that over the next six to eight months."

ASME.ORG staff will also continue with their feedback-gathering endeavors in order to make the site as useful and user-friendly as possible. "The response from Congress was overwhelmingly positive," Wall said. "One hundred percent of the Congress participants said the content of the feedback sessions was good or excellent. And 90 percent said they would recommend we have this type of session at other conferences. So, we will definitely be doing it again at the next Congress."

For more information, contact Denman Wall at walld@asme.org.

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