What makes a (human) e-reader?

[hildea]

Well, "African" and "Asian" are pretty wide categories too, to put it mildly

I think I'd have asked which part of the world people live in, instead or in addition.

[cfrizz]

Your question didn't take into account anyone who is of mixed heritage, or offer the ability of more than one choice. If you had, I would have been able to click on European & African American.

I assume you are from Europe, and based the survey on how they do them, because here in the states, we classify by color of skin and your education levels are High school, Associates, Bachelors, Masters, PHD, and GED if you didn't finish High school.

For both those questions I used the other option.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Your question didn't take into account anyone who is of mixed heritage, or offer the ability of more than one choice.

That's odd - I tested the survey before launching it and that question definitely allowed multiple answers. My apologies if that failed, that was an important design consideration. I'm disappointed to learn that it did not work as intended.

[Apache]

I put Mongrel. My wife says she is a pedigree and I am a Mongrel.
Apache

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by hildea

Well, "African" and "Asian" are pretty wide categories too, to put it mildly

Yes, all the categories were broad, by design - "American indigenous" stretches from the Arctic to within sight of Antarctica It was never intended as a serious sociological study, and even if it were, there's no way that particular question could cover every response, hence "other"

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Apache

I put Mongrel. My wife says she is a pedigree and I am a Mongrel.
Apache

Good answer - we're ALL mongrels As it turns out, that question DOES allow for multiple responses, but my own familiarity with questionnaire design caused me to fail to state that explicitly - square checkboxes mean "multiple responses possible, round ones, one only. Truly "a little learning IS a dangerous thing"

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Apache

I put Mongrel. My wife says she is a pedigree and I am a Mongrel.

Does tracing your ancestry in North America back to 1643 qualify as having a pedigree?

[MarjaE]

On question 6, which is better and which is worse?

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

On question 6, which is better and which is worse?

It's a ranking question - 1,2,3 as in first, second, third

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

I kinda do. Even "European" is very diverse group from English to Russians... And skin color doesn't even have to do anything with that. And difference between Europeans and Americans with ancestry from Europe isn't exactly small. Both in language and culture... Which for reading isn't exactly inconsequential thing... Then again this is English language forum...

Hum, wish I could do accents typing. I'm at least 4th generation American, probably even more, I suspect that where your great,great grandfather came from doesn't really matter all that much.

My first reaction reading the survey was "America and Great Britain, two countries separated by a common language."

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

My first reaction reading the survey was "America and Great Britain, two countries separated by a common language."

Whereas I'm from the most heavily-populated place on the planet - somewhere else.

[Uncle Robin]

A very big THANK YOU to everyone who took part in my little survey. As is often the way, the questions I thought most straightforward caused the most problems, not helped by it having been too long since I last designed a survey myself. Anyway, it was a fun exercise and I hope that apart from a reminder of the differences in English vocabulary and usage in different parts of the world, the 54 responses published here can give at least a hazy outline of MR's userbase. If nothing else, it could well be a decent-sized serving of confirmation bias.

[twowheels]

I'm curious who was reading ebooks in 1985. I mean, they existed, but screens were far from ideal back then! I thought that I was an early adopter, starting in ~1994...

(though I guess you could consider it a bit further back if you stretch the definition to include text based z-machine games like Zork that were basically just interactive stories )

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by twowheels

I'm curious who was reading ebooks in 1985.

Ford Prefect?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by twowheels

I'm curious who was reading ebooks in 1985. I mean, they existed, but screens were far from ideal back then! I thought that I was an early adopter, starting in ~1994...

(though I guess you could consider it a bit further back if you stretch the definition to include text based z-machine games like Zork that were basically just interactive stories )

Hmmm... I was reading documentation on my CP/M Z-80 based computer in 1978 (4MHz CPU, 64KiB, 2x1.4MB floppy disks). Even earlier on IBM/Amdahl mainframes and Data General and DEC minicomputers. Though I'm not sure if any of really qualifies as ebooks since they were pretty much simple text files.