In autumn last year, we ran a rather large-scale user survey, which was translated into many languages and advertised here on this blog. The final reports can be found here:
- English (1476 responses)
- Spanish (122 responses)
- French (457 responses)
- Portuguese (146 responses)
- Romanian (30 responses)
(Let me know if you have links to other language versions which were not sent to the mailing list.)
Looking at the English report, most responses were filed by regular (49.7%) and advanced users (35.9%) who use QGIS at least several times per week. One interesting result is that responders feel that the project should still prioritise new features when spending funds:
Top 3 “highest priority for spending QGIS funds”
- Important features that are missing (50%)
- More bugfixing (24.1%)
- Improved user documentation (12.4%)
This is also confirmed by the free comments section were roughly 23% of responders were asking for new features, 19% called for more stability (fewer releases and new features), and 9% for better documentation.
Documentation improvements were followed closely by calls for a more structured approach to plugins (making it easier to find the right tool for the job), stricter plugin documentation requirements, consolidation of plugins with similar functionality, and integration of key plugins into core.
When interpreting these results, it’s important to keep in mind that responses are skewed towards experienced users, who are more likely to require specialist functionality. Beginners on the other hand might rank stability, ease of use of core functionality, and good documentation higher.
QGIS.org blog 