Nice work, Zess. Thanks for sharing the results. Few comments/call outs for you (some feedback, some things I find interesting):
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Section 1, Question 2: The visualization here makes it hard to parse. My recommendation is to avoid using pie charts whenever possible. They’re pretty often regarded as one of the worst ways to visualize data. I think the bar chart you used above would be easier to read, although sometimes a simple table can suffice too. This pie chart is really tough to read given all of the options available.
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Section 1, Question 9: Concerned that so few new folks are represented here, but I’m going to guess it is sampling bias. Glad to hear there are a lot of folks in the 1-2 year range. Good to see community growth!
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Section 2, Question 12: 57.5% of 174 people said they played a hack more than once. I hope this ends the thinking that “no one replays romhacks”. There’s obvious sample bias here, but people will replay a hack if it is good! I’ve personally replayed Road to Ruin front to back twice, TLP twice, each of Dream of Five’s routes, the GBA build of Staff of Ages ~3 times, the old Bloodlines patch twice, and 7 Siblings twice (albeit at very different points in its dev). Not to mention the full and partial runs of Vision Quest over the years (too many to count).
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Section 2, Question 15: This insight I think is really important for a lot of folks building hacks, but the visualization here makes it a bit tough to parse out. For something like this, I’d recommend splitting it into 2 charts. One chart that shows the number of responses in each category, and then a 2nd chart that shows, on average, which of these categories are most important via a ranking. Doing some kind of weighted average based on the responses to the question would be pretty illuminating in painting a better picture of what people really care about. Selfishly, I feel validated seeing map visuals rated as highly as they are and surprised that supports rate so low given the boost they tend to give to popularity. Again, could be sampling bias.
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Section 2, Question 23/24: Get there’s a lot here, but would love to see the data. A simple ranked count of mentions would be enough to visualize this effectively. Probably similar to how I showed the vote tallies for the iconic hackrom character poll way back when.
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Section 3: Questions 32/33 - Same visualization as above would be good IMO. Also, really flattered to see VQ called out. Thanks all.
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Section 3: Question 38 - I wonder how much of this would change if skills were reframed a bit. I’d argue almost anyone is using project management skills when working on a hack and those are easily transferrable. Writing, formating, proofreading, testing – hacking definitely is a good way to learn how to double check your work and get thorough. Troubleshooting and problem solving skills… the list goes on! Don’t sell your experience short.
Thanks again for doing this, Zess. Cool insights and I hope you get a good grade on your project!