Asking the Right Question

There are many reasons why you’d like to know if your user liked something or not. It can be used later for recommendation, for example, or to assess whether or not the users want the new feature you’ve just added. And it seems to me that not only the question but also the choices of answers offered matters a lot.

So, let’s say you add an (optional) survey to your application to collect feedback. You can ask a yes/no question like “do you like the new feature?”. The obvious yes/no answer isn’t so obvious. If the users select yes, it means yes, but what if they click no?

Suggested Reading: A Field Guide To Genetic Programming

Riccardo Poli, William B. Langdon, Nicholas F. McPhee — A Field Guide to Genetic Programming — Lulu, 2008, 240 pp. ISBN 978-1-4092-0073-4

(Buy at Amazon.com)

This is not an ordinary textbook as it does not follow the expected pattern but is rather an extensive survey of the field of genetic programming. Each chapter introduces a major concept or issue in genetic programming and covers the subject in a rather authoritative way, supported by copious documentation—the last 57 pages of the books are occupied by the bibliography.