The user profile informs us that the majority of our users comes from
the academic and government research community and, indeed, we develop
the program to mostly meet their needs. The platform-independence of the
program is soon to be established, and at that time users would be able
to enjoy VMD's graphic capabilities regardless of the type of machine
they have on their desk. This is an obvious preference expressed in the
survey and it strengthens our resolve to port the software to all
platforms. Our reliance on the web and electronic mail for effective
distribution of our software is heavy and will become even heavier in the
future. The internet is the perfect dissemination tool, equally
appreciated by us and by our users.
The present program was evaluated very highly on all examined
aspects. Free availability is an obvious strength of the program, in
addition to its technical qualities and its user-friendly GUI. The level
of agreement among the respondents is a powerful evidence in support of
the program as is. Further illuminating is that, with a single exception,
academic users report a higher level of satisfaction with VMD, and on
eight specific items this difference is statistically significant.
Admittedly, limited resources force us to favor one target population
over others, and the satisfaction analysis demonstrates that that
particular user group, as expected, is indeed more satisfied. Similarly,
the higher satisfaction of academic users with VMD support compared to
non-academics, is easily explained. The former would typically expect
less support from a freely distributed program and are more grateful for
the service they receive than the latter. Nevertheless, reinforcing our
support efforts should be considered.
The items measuring the expected usefulness of planned
features generated a low level of agreement among users and this is not
surprising. Attitudes and evaluation grounded in actual experiences tend
to elicit higher agreement compared to evaluation of expected
experiences. Still, the information provided here is invaluable and
allows us to a. re-assess more systematically our plans, and b. select
and prioritize future features based more closely on our users'
preferences and needs. The expressed desire to interface VMD with
molecular dynamics tools, especially Amber, Charmm, XPLOR, and Insight,
fits perfectly with our anticipated expansion of the MDScope
framework and with the work we recently started on our NIH-funded
Collaboratory project.
The quality of VMD support was judged above average, and as
expected low maintenance support - i.e. web pages and documentation -
received higher scores than labor-intensive services. This is
understandable and reflects our limited resources and our need, as a
result, to make tough choices and balance various interests. It is worth
noting in this context that NIH-funded users ranked their overall
satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with developers' responsiveness and
the extent to which VMD meets their needs, significantly higher than
non-NIH funded users. This could be interpreted as a consequence of
expecting less and of realizing that our means are restricted. All the
same, we recognize how essential support is and hope that in the future
we will be able to direct more resources towards that end. The maturation
of the program, too, may lead to lower demands on the development arena
and will free up the developers to provide more support.
The qualitative analysis of the comments yielded an extremely
positive view of VMD. The mere willingness of so many respondents
(45.3%) to take their time and write down their opinions in an
open-ended fashion implies an unusual commitment and loyalty to our
program. The highly constructive spirit characterizing the comments
suggests, too, that our users care about VMD and perceive it as their
own. Of the 204 comments, 111 were pure suggestions, mostly having to do
with adding features to VMD. It is transparent that the users are
concerned about the friendliness of the program and would like to be able
to interface it with other tools. The wealth of information supplied by
the respondents is already being reviewed closely by the developers and
will help us refine our blueprint for VMD.