HR-Net Survey Results

8. Which of the following WEB BROWSERS do you use?

77.48 Netscape Navigator

18.86 Microsoft Explorer

 1.68 NCSA Mosaic

 1.96 Lynx

9. Which of the following OPERATING ENVIRONMENTS do you use?

47.88 Windows 95 or NT

23.45 Windows 3.1

14.98 Unix

13.68 Macintosh

10. In which languages do you read news at HR-Net?

74.29 Both

15.92 English only

 9.80 Greek only

11. If you are reading Greek News do you use ELOT-928 (Greek) or ASCII (Latin) fonts?

59.60 ELOT 928 Greek characters

40.40 ASCII Greek Latin characters

 0    Both (from different ports)

HR-NET COMMENT: Our results suggest that 40% of our users are still unable to read Greek fonts. Although we understand that several users are forced to use ASCII transliterated fonts for reasons beyond their control, the HR-Net Group is committed to minimizing this practice. To this end, we provide easy-to-follow instructions for dowloading and installing greek fonts for all computer environments through our "Using Greek" pages. Furthermore, we offer free technical support for these procedures via email at fonts@hri.org

12. How did you learn about HR-Net?

40.11 From a Search Engine

37.91 From a Friend

16.48 From a Link on a different Site

 3.30 Received HR-Net Electronic Announcement

 1.65 From Usenet Signature

 0.55 Received HR-Net Printed Material, Brochure

HR-NET COMMENT: HR-Net is an entirely volunteer-based project operating on a very tight budget which unfortunately does not allow us to allocate funds for marketing and/or other promotional events. Please feel free to inform your friends about our work, and consider a tax-deductible donation to the Hellenic Resources Institute.

13. Please Give a Rating for the HR-Net Web Site

32.98 Outstanding

47.34 Excellent

17.02 Above Average

 2.66 Average

    0 Below Average

    0 Marginal

    0 Poor

THE FOLLOWING ANSWERS ARE SORTED BY VALUE. THE CLOSER A VALUE IS TO 1 THE MORE IMPORTANT THIS ISSUE WAS TO THE USERS SURVEYED.

14. Which of the following do you consider an important reason for visiting

0.862 Diverse and regularly updated news material, collected in one web site

0.855 Speed of accessing sites mirrored from Greece

0.850 Coverage of Special Foreign Affairs Events (Imia, Cyprus)

0.807 Hellenic Organization sites (no news) e.g. Hellenic Literature Society, Greek Institute etc.

0.763 Special Services: Personal Newspaper, Nodes, Fonts, Links to World Press

0.743 It is a non-profit volunteer based site

0.715 Good Customer Support

0.709 Content from non-Greek Information Sources

15. Which of the following HR-Net services do you find most valuable?

0.829 Collection of Links to World Press Articles related to Greece, Cyprus and the Balkans

0.807 Index of Interesting Nodes

0.799 Search Engine for News Archive

0.755 Greek Fonts downloading and customer support

0.748 Conferences and Public Announcements Pages

0.747 Replies of HR-Net volunteers to general questions regarding Greece and Cyprus

0.736 Personal Newspaper On-Line

0.694 Personal Newspaper Email

16. Which of the following will be a valuable improvement in terms of service?

0.972 Improve Speed of accessing the Web Site

0.753 Improve Interface to the News

0.742 Improve Search Engine

0.700 Improve Presentation: more graphics, Java, sound, video

0.657 Improve Customer Support

HR-NET COMMENT: In order to maximize the access speed of our users to the HR-Net server, we have minimized our graphics content, avoided the burden of Java scripts and leased our own T1 1.56Mbps connection to the Internet. Since only 10% of our line's capacity is utilized at peak usage, it is evident that any delays experienced by our users are due to heavy traffic at other bottleneck nodes on the Internet and thus beyond our control.

17. Would you be interested in more news from:

0.870 GREECE

0.773 CYPRUS

0.692 TURKEY

0.703 OTHER BALKAN COUNTRIES

0.702 OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, eg. UN, NATO

0.674 the USA

0.641 RUSSIA, ASIA

18. What kind of news content would be a valuable addition?

0.861 EUROPEAN COMMUNITY ISSUES

0.859 FOREIGN POLICY

0.810 POLITICS

0.804 ECONOMY/BUSINESS

0.792 SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY

0.783 CULTURAL/ARTS

0.754 INTERNET

0.633 SPORTS/ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINES

ANOTHER ISSUE THAT CAME UP FREQUENTLY DURING OUR SURVEY:

Q: Why don't we mirror more newspapers from Greece such as To Vima, Ta Nea, Express etc.?:

A: The HR-Net Group is committed to providing as diverse and complete a spectrum of information as is available at any given time. We are currently negotiating with several mass media, associations and organizations for their inclusion in our server, and hope to bring them to you as quickly as possible. It would be particularly valuable to us if you could also send such requests directly to the relevant sources (eg To Vima, Ta Nea and Dolnet in general) in the hope that it will prove the public-demand that we have already presented to them.

The HR-Net Group would like to thank all of you who completed this survey.