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                       Introducing "Do You Use It?" Polls

   Adam Engst

   Every year, Apple makes a big fuss about the new features in its
   forthcoming operating systems, and tech publications write about many
   of them, often before Apple's final releases. But after the excitement
   of the eventual release wanes, how many people end up using those
   features in their everyday lives? Were they legitimate efforts to
   improve the user experience, or just some product manager's idea being
   thrown against the wall to see if it sticks?

   I'm sure Apple has statistics on feature use because David Shayer once
   explained how seriously Apple takes user privacy when recording usage
   statistics (see '[1]Former Apple Engineer: Here's Why I Trust Apple's
   COVID-19 Notification Proposal,' 11 May 2020). Apple undoubtedly uses
   that information to allocate development and testing resources, but the
   company never shares such details with the world. The closest we get is
   when Apple either lets a feature stagnate or removes it
   entirely'remember Dashboard and iDVD?

   Why should you care? In theory, you shouldn't. In an ideal world, you'd
   sit down with the complete list of features in each of Apple's
   operating systems, give each one a whirl, and see if it solves a
   problem or otherwise improves your life. If you have time for all that,
   I'm impressed! Exploring new features is literally my job, and even I
   can't find the time to examine everything Apple introduces.

   But I can think of three reasons we might care about how heavily
   certain features are used:
     * Social proof: When we lack the time or expertise to evaluate
       something for ourselves, we often fall back on social proof: 'Are
       people like me using this feature?' It's a shortcut, to be sure,
       but we all do it, and it's not necessarily problematic as long as
       you don't just accept the crowd's opinion as the gospel truth.
     * Evangelism: It's entirely human to want to share. If we think some
       feature makes a real difference in our lives, we want to tell
       others about it. To an extent, that applies on the negative side
       too. Although I seldom cover features for which I have no use, I
       sometimes feel the need to call out unchecked marketing (see
       '[2]The Dark Side of Dark Mode,' 31 May 2019).
     * Curiosity: We all have opinions about the utility of many Apple
       features but no way of knowing the extent to which others share
       them. I'm particularly curious if my instincts as a tech publisher
       are on target or if I need to adjust my beliefs to match the
       TidBITS readership.

   All this is by way of introducing [3]something I've started in the
   Discourse software that powers TidBITS Talk and our article comments:
   Do You Use It polls.

   These polls aren't statistically significant because respondents
   self-select from the pool of regular TidBITS readers. But the results
   should provide a sense of what people who read TidBITS'and thus are
   like us'think about these features. I suspect some polls will generate
   more responses than others due to the strength of feeling people have
   for the feature in question'that's fine and perhaps indicative in
   itself.

   The beauty of building the polls in Discourse is that after people
   vote, they can post an explanation of why they voted as they did, what
   aspects of the feature they feel are well or poorly implemented, what
   alternatives they use, and so on. I'll break branches off into their
   own topics as necessary.

   I haven't yet figured out precisely what I want to do with the results
   here in TidBITS. In some cases, covering the poll results might be an
   excuse to write about the feature itself. In other cases, I might
   merely link to the results after a few weeks to get them into the
   historical record. Similarly, I'm not sure how frequently I want to
   start a new poll'one or two a week might make sense, but it needs to
   stay fun and not become onerous. We'll see.

   One final point. My first two polls were driven by wondering how many
   people rely on Stage Manager on the Mac and the iPad, and the third
   stemmed from a throwaway comment in the discussion'does anyone actually
   use Launchpad?'that triggered so many comments I had to turn it into a
   poll to clean up the conversation. But future polls will cover features
   that undoubtedly enjoy broad adoption, like Time Machine or Spotlight.
   I alsoplan to use them to introduce some tremendously helpful little
   features that many people probably don't even know about, like proxy
   icons. Such polls will include an answer to account for those currently
   in the dark, and you'll also be able to change your vote afterward,
   such as from 'I didn't know this feature existed' to 'I use it daily.'
   I hope that happens for some people!

   Here are our first three Do You Use It polls. Click through to the
   Discourse poll, make sure you're logged in with your TidBITS account,
   and vote!
     * [4]Do You Use It? Stage Manager on the Mac
     * [5]Do You Use It? Stage Manager on the iPad
     * [6]Do You Use It? Launchpad on the Mac

References

   1. https://tidbits.com/2020/05/11/former-apple-engineer-heres-why-i-trust-apples-covid-19-notification-proposal/
   2. https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-dark-mode/
   3. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/quantifying-how-much-different-apple-features-get-used/22697?u=ace
   4. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/do-you-use-it-stage-manager-on-the-mac/22698?u=ace
   5. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/do-you-use-it-stage-manager-on-the-ipad/22699?u=ace
   6. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/do-you-use-it-launchpad-on-the-mac/22721?u=ace

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