Loc:Hooyi

A List Apart recently released their “Findings From the People Who Make Websites” 2008 survey. And apparently, we are pretty satisfied with our jobs (or at least those peeps who still have a job and who responded to this survey).

This year they put the results on the web (say what?!) instead of one big white paper in PDF format. You can also download the raw data.

Here’s a quick look at the number and the demographics of the respondents:
Total # of Respondents: 30,055
• About 90% of them are between 19 to 44
• 83.8% are male.
• 84.7% are white.
(I am feeling a little left out of this survey.)
• A little over 50% of them are either Developers (27.8%) or “Others” (26%).
(What do “Others” do?!)
• Almost 90% are from North & Central America and Europe.
(ah~ hence the 84.7% white. They did say they increased the diversity this time around. Um, at least they are trying.)
• 48.3% are from the U.S.
• 53.2% have a college degree.

To read more summarized info (such as years of experience, types of organization etc), click here.

Here are some of the specific findings that may be of interest (at least to me):

• Satisfaction and Inferred Satisfaction (detailed survey results)
They sliced this category’s results many ways (by age, gender, region, education level etc). All in all, it indicates that we are fairly happy with the general profession across the board. Overall, satisfaction level is at about 70%. I think that’s a pretty good number. Though I have no idea how this compares to other industries.

• Education—How Relevant? (detailed survey results)
Most notably, I am glad to hear statement “as last year, the general pattern holds: the more formal education you have, the more money you tend to make” - since I am planning to go back to school. Ha. Ha.

• Skills and Skill Gaps (detailed survey results)
Skill gaps results are good indications of the future of the workforce. Even though they did say the results are not meant for any empirical predictions, it is, at least, one general look of the current field. What do people know? What are they learning? And who are learning them?

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Off the topic:
I must say some visual presentations of the data are a bit amiss.
For example, what do you see in this chart?
“Geez, women aren’t very happy. ” - that’s what I thought.

But under the chart, they wrote “Men and women appear to be equally satisfied with their current work situations.” How can this chart possibly be saying that when it clearly shows, overall, 83.7% of the “satisfied” are male?! Of course, this chart doesn’t illustrate correctly this particular finding (not that the data isn’t correct, just visualization).

This chart is merely presenting % of the number of respondents of a gender by satisfaction levels to the total number of respondents. I.e. # of “satisfied females” divided by the # of total respondents (more accurately responses. some did not answer this question).

It should have shown the % of satisfied females over total female respondents and vice versa for men’s results.

If you play with the raw data, you do get the finding that men and women are equally happy. My very rough calculation gives me 70% satisfied for both group.