Wednesday 22 April 2015

Information is Beautiful

Skills assessments generate a lot of useful data. We have always been in the business of gathering information. And we have thousands of records to analyse. A key theme for KS this year is discovering new and interesting ways to anonymously present the findings of our global data capture.

As well as test topic, score & time values, we also capture optional additional background information about KS users, including:

Primary Industry/Discipline
Primary Role
Country
State (NB if US/CAN/Aus selected in 'Country' field)
Self rating (1-5)
How many years have you used BIM/CAD/Engineering software?
How often do you use BIM/CAD/Engineering software?
How did you primarily learn to use BIM/CAD/Engineering software?
Where did you first learn to use BIM/CAD/Engineering software? (Country/State) What BIM/CAD/Engineering software do you regularly use?
Please specify any other software.

Our goal in the coming months is to create a series of topical benchmarking stories from the information captured.

For example:

Average Revit Architecture test score/time for Architects based in California, using the software for 5 years or more, self-taught, part-time users, who learned in the USA.

Average Revit Structure test score/time for Structural Engineers based in NSW, Australia, using the software for 2-5 years, formally trained, full-time users, who learned in Australia.

Average MicroStation score/time for self-taught vs formally trained users.

Average AutoCAD score/time for < 5 year users vs > 10 year users.

And so on.

As you can see, there are dozens of possible permutations for interesting themes and stories buried in the data.  We just need to analyse and identify the best ones!

Here is one of our inspirations for creating amazing infographics:

Information is Beautiful by David McCandless.




Over the coming months, we'll share with you the most interesting stories, data-mined from our industry-leading skills assessment software.

R