Survey Questions and Answers (Summarized)

Based on your experience, what are the most important functions/features of a website for the platform coop community? In other words, what do you want/expect to be able to find and/or do on the site?

• map/directory & stories/case studies of coops
  • including regional hubs
• understand what platform cooperativism is
  
• find and contribute articles
• search resource archives (legal, technical)
  • legal compliance info
    
  • business model examples
• know who is maintaining/running the site
• learn how to start a coop
• a guide as to how to join the consortium (for coops, freelancers etc)
• tap into online community
• events listing
• list of free/OS frameworks 
• maybe a discussion forum (using Loomio or Discourse?)
  

How do you use the existing website to engage with others in the coop community, if at all?

• I don't
• I go to social media or mailing list instead
• I put my coop into the directory
• I look up conference dates
• I read blog posts, articles
• I look up news (from events)
  

Describe some activities or ways of connecting with others through the new site that you would like to see incorporated.

• connect/tap in to social media streams or other chats
  • allow open-ended, self-directed participation
• tap into existing content in platform coop community
• map
• forums
• it shouldn't be the purpose of the site
• maybe discussion/comments under blog posts?
• experimental field for collaborative creation of coop / collectively owned digital infrastructures. 
  • how can developers engage?
  • coop repositories for collaborative software developments?
• overview of network/resources available
• share challenges/questions with other coops
• point of contact for coops (connect over shared resources)
• specific points of contact for different types of collaborators - such as freelancers having their own e-mail address to contact
• a way to join the project
  

What features of the existing site do you find useful?

• archive of content
• blog
• directory (not just the coops but also related orgs)
• get involved/ call to action
• basic info about platform cooperativism
• news
• links to social media
• resources/articles
  

What is the most important change needed on the existing website?

• archive needs regular updates (including crowd-sourced submissions and motivation to do so)
• better search engine (allow for searching date range, most recent, RSS feed, etc)
• landing page needs a clear, concise definition of Platform Cooperativism
• post links to livestream video recordings from past events/conferences panels
• provide connections to other platforms
• need a "how to start a coop"
• easier sign-up/onboarding to join the movement/other coops etc
  • ability to reach out to other workers to join their coop, freelancers who want to start a coop etc
• add "profile pages" of coops
• better events listing
• more support for developers
• include regional coop hubs
• right now there is too much text info/hierarchy in the structure
  • make it interactive 
  • make targets more clear
  • more specific and granular organization

Are there any websites that you find particularly engaging and useful? What are the specific features and/or design characteristics that you like and why?

• http://www.co-oplaw.org/
  • narrow and specific focus, full of easy-to-find information
• https://techaction.nyc/
  • interactive, useful, entertaining
•  https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org:
  • very simple, basically a wordpress site, but does a good job of conveying information. 
  • Any well-designed advocacy and research news blog could be a good example
• Airbnb https://www.airbnb.ca/ 
  • visual appeal
  • clear call to actions
  • showcases what it is all about by displaying a large number of interesting examples on the landing page
• World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/ and the Climate Action Tracker websites https://climateactiontracker.org/ 
  • information on various topics and areas arranged in drop-down boxes
  • pill buttons, etc. 
  • Focus on freely flowing, coherent, nested HTML and CSS elements over slower-loading and less flexible JavaScript elements, 
  • Succinct descriptions of the purpose of each page, and what users can hope to do with the information on each page. 
  • clear, bolded, elements of the site that encourages and entices users on how they can take action on issues.
    

Overall Summary