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Roadtesting stats

neuromodulator

Today out of boredom and curiosity, motivated by other posts on site stats I decided to compute some stats of the published roadtests. There are a couple of interesting things that can be computed and would be interesting to know, specially in terms of correlations. For instance, do member points increase the chances of winning expensive items? What about number of posts? There are many questions I was wondering about to better understand the dynamics of the system. One of the first questions (and easiest to answer with my data) was how many users have won and published different amount of roadtests. And the results I obtained were these:

 

1: 359

2: 68

3: 32

4: 11

5: 9

6: 10

7: 7

8: 2

9: 0

10: 2

11: 3

12: 1

13: 1

14: 2

15: 0

16: 0

17: 1

18: 1

 

That is, 356 users have won and published 1 roadtest, and 1 user has won and published 18 roadtests. Ideally I would like to count won roadtests (not just published ones), having such data would also be useful to calculate the number of users that win roadtests and never publish anything. Other interesting stats could be to analyse trends, for instance, have the number of words in roadtests reviews increased? As the competition has gotten harder, I would expect to see some visible trends since the beginning of the roadtesting program.

Parents Reply
  • in reply to neuromodulator

    I was thinking three or four, but I've done 6.

    There is no magic wand, you fill out an application giving all the information to effectively 'sell yourself'.

     

    While some may take the 'apply for everything' apporach, you're far better to concentrate on the things you know and can deliver on, and it will show in your application.

     

    Cheers

    mark

Children
  • in reply to mcb1

    I agree. I haven't done that many - 4 with another on the way soon. This is probably because I only apply for ones I feel I can do well. I am careful not to claim I'll do something unless I'm sure I can. That way if I'm selected then I'm confident of doing a reasonable job. If I don't get selected then that's fine.

     

    The only thing that messes this up is those who promise everything but don't deliver. (We've had plenty of discussion of this elsewhere.)

  • in reply to mcb1

    Correctly pointed, Mark.

     

    I was just wondering, How can you apply for something you want to learn while doing Roadtest, Something like FPGA's for me; And convince that you can do the roadtest.

     

    As you yourself would be going through an extensive Learning Curve !!

     

    Regards,

    GS Gill

  • in reply to gsgill112

    My personal feeling is that it really depends on the particular product and company whether this is an approach they value.

     

    If they want to know how the product is being perceived by someone without much experience in the area, then they might choose an application which reflects this. But other times, they're probably interested in someone who can show off what the product can do or push it to the limits - then it doesn't make as much sense to choose someone who is "learning" about the product as the learning curve might just be too steep (resulting in those reviews which "give up" because an example wouldn't build and had some error message). That would be a risk to the company as it might make the product look bad, but also they're out of pocket with a potentially expensive product sent to a "learner" who couldn't overcome a barrier.

     

    So I think the answer is that - for some products, if you don't have the experience already, it might not make sense for them to choose you. Likewise, in that case, it probably makes sense to learn some on your own if you can or choose RoadTests where this may be more valuable (e.g. very fresh products targeted at beginners) to build up knowledge and experience first.

     

    - Gough

  • in reply to Gough Lui

    Well put.

    That was exactly what I was thinking for answering

    I've have avoided RT's where I don't have the skills (or equipment) to do a proper test.

     

     

    I'd really think twice about submitting a proposal if it were to be publicised

    I'm struggling to understand just what secrets would be in your accepted proposal (as in you have been selected to do the Road Test) that you can't share ..... (personal details redacted of course)

    This is a proposal for Road Tests (although the Design Challenge also fits) and you're happy to provide those details to the element14 staff and a sponsor (or sponsors).

     

    Mark

  • in reply to gsgill112

    Road tests where the tester is learning can be excellent road tests. Every device needs every user to go through a learning curve and often the ease with which the user learns a device is an important factor in the product's success. I'm sure many successful applications demonstrate a sincere desire to learn about the product and faithfully blog about the experience. You may need to demonstrate an ability to make a good blog about learning a new product in order to help gain credibility.Just pick any product you have access to and blog about your learning experience. Every road test I ever did involved a learning curve. It always starts before I've even written the application and it is pretty powerful if you demonstrate what you have already learned about the product in your application. If you are looking for a secret to success - that is one of them.

  • in reply to mcb1

    I don’t necessarily think it would be too much Mark, probably things similar to those “obvious” personal details you mention being redacted - you know, the things that go without saying sometimes!

     

    Some of my Roadtest applications have taken advantage of customer work and on-site testing that wouldn’t necessarily be appropriate to publish quite so openly, and I imagine some other people may have similar.

     

    Whilst it’s only a small thing, it would still be a barrier to automatically publishing accepted applications.

     

    A