Drafting the 2026 user survey

Community
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I started drafting the 2026 user survey questions and would welcome feedback on the current working drafts.

The goal is to prepare the survey over the next few weeks, review the main open questions during the May 28 community call, and keep the discussion open asynchronously on the forum.

The survey would be in two parts: a usage survey and a feature-ranking poll.

Usage survey

You can review and comment on the draft survey in this document.

I followed the same template as the 2024 survey. There is value in keeping some questions and answer choices consistent with the previous survey, so we can compare results and establish trends.

During the May 21 Advisory Committee meeting, we discussed the following points.

OpenRefine installation question. For the OpenRefine installation question, we considered asking users to copy and paste their system information in order to provide:

  • OpenRefine version
  • operating system
  • Java version
  • list of installed extensions

The rationale against asking for the copied system information was that:

  • This information is only available in OpenRefine 3.9+
  • it creates friction by asking users to start OpenRefine, which moves them away from the survey

Mission, vision, and values alignment. We could ask questions to evaluate how the community operates in relation to OpenRefine’s mission, vision, and values. The exact question framing still needs to be defined. Possible questions:

  • Based on your experience as a user or contributor, is the community respecting its mission, vision, and values? We could ask this per value, but that may create too many questions.
  • Is there something we are not doing that we should do?
  • Is there something we should stop doing?

AI usage. Should we ask how users use AI alongside OpenRefine? For example, in preprocessing, postprocessing, or tasks that have moved from OpenRefine to AI tools.

Volunteer recruitment. Should we use the survey to communicate and ask for feedback regarding the 2026 funding update and budget direction? With more limited funding available, volunteer engagement is becoming more important. Should we word the question Would you be interested in contributing to OpenRefine in any of the following ways? differently?

Other potential questions we didn't discuss during the Advisory Committee meeting:

  • Do we want to collect more demographic data points, such as age, education level, and geographic location? If we collect that information, how will we use it?
  • Are there questions identified in 2024 but not selected that we should revisit this year?

Feature-ranking poll

For the feature prioritization part, I created a new list here, based on:

  • features listed in the 2024 survey that are still open
  • new feature tickets created in the last two years

I plan to use the All Our Ideas platform again this year, by presenting the feature name and related issue number or link so users can research it if needed.

Survey distribution

Following the same pattern as 2024, we plan to promote the survey:

  • on this forum
  • on social media
  • through the mailing list
  • via a GitHub pinned issue
  • through a homepage notification
  • through an in-app notification

From experience, sharing the survey in community-specific channels, such as Slack workspaces and mailing lists, greatly improves exposure.

Proposed timeline

Here is the proposed timeline:

  • Prepare the survey from now until early July. Join the May 28 call to discuss the survey drafts.
  • Run the survey from early July to mid-September
  • Analyze the data from mid-September to mid-October
  • Publish the results blog post in November 2026
May 21, 2026 Advisory Committee