2020 Quasar Survey: thoughts about the framework communication

The survey was created by Dreamonkey and sent out on 16th November 2020, with the supervision and approval of the Quasar Core Team. It lasted two weeks and through the official channels of the framework we involved over 1000 participants from the community who contributed with enthusiasm.

Where does the idea of a Quasar framework survey come from

The core team had felt the need for some time to reorganise and strengthen its position in the web development field. The goal was twofold: on one hand the drive to find forms of funding to support the project, making it an entity with more “fire power”, on the other hand the wish to expand the numbers of the community to emerge more in the sector.

Dreamonkey is one of the Platinum Sponsors of the framework and, along with Paolo Caleffi (Dreamonkey partner, member of the Quasar Core Team and one of the speakers at the Quasar Conf 2020), we wondered where we could start to help contribute to the project. Indeed, in recent years users have shown a lot of trust in the Quasar Team and its creator, Razvan Stoenescu, so it seemed essential to start from the needs and expectations of the community, deciding also to involve it directly. Our knowledge of the user experience field has been a great help (At Dreamonkey we deal with web design, but also UI/UX design).

Indeed this has allowed us to make a really substantial survey pleasant. If you wish, you can download the 2020 official Quasar Survey report.
In this article I’m just going to look at some of the topics covered, from the point of view of user experience, communication and brand.

User experience and information accessibility

Although the Quasar site offers a great quantity of content, the majority of users did not find any issues with the area dedicated to technical resources, which is very reassuring since this is the core of Quasar.

However, there is a lot of other information that is unknown, not in depth enough or presented in a fragmented manner which needs to be suitably taken advantage of. The objective is not to take away space from developer resources, but to make the side information more accessible and intuitive.

Those who discover Quasar for the first time, those who wish to collaborate or support the project must be able to easily access and use complete and exhaustive content. These aspects will be strengthened by refining the system architecture, the content hierarchy, the copywriting and the user interface.

Communicating Quasar and its strengths

«Not enough marketing. Inferior frameworks get more publicity. Quasar needs to feel better supported with more backing.»

Anonymous, 2020 Quasar Survey

From the considerable amount of spontaneous feedback we collected we can observe a tight-knit community that recognises the value of Quasar and even believes that the project doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

Communicating an open source project is not that different from communicating a company or a product. Quasar is also a brand. Those who are already familiar with the framework and use it don’t need to know much else, but the developers and companies that are considering adopting this technology must be made to feel they can trust it.
Communicating a brand means knowing how to show its value on the outside, beyond the circle of management and collaborators, highlighting its strengths so that everyone can get to know them as clearly as possible.

In recent years Quasar has done an excellent job and has a lot to show on a technological level which makes it very competitive compared to other frameworks. However, Quasar’s technological value is greater than its ability to make itself known and we are convinced that this has in part limited its spread.

From this point of view, we need to express Quasar’s achievements with visual and storytelling solutions that really do the level reached by the framework over the years credit.

New value content

«Solutions to specific common but not straightforward problems and “How to’s”.»

Anonymous, 2020 Quasar Survey

Quasar has a lot of communication channels: Facebook, Twitter, Discord, a Forum and a Blog, as well as a Github page. The survey revealed a low level of involvement of the community, often determined by the fact that the users were not even aware of these channels. Developers often feel they are too busy to stay up to date with news and analyses. Therefore we need to redesign the priorities, offering support content to improve your workflow without wasting time. For this reason we are thinking about revitalizing the Quasar channels with tutorials and guides that better meet the needs expressed in the survey.

Producing quality content could not only be a way to actively involve the community in this process, but also to reach developers that don’t know the Quasar channels.

Quasar’s plans for the future

The 2020 Quasar Survey allowed us to confirm some suspicions we had and take the opportunity to improve and enrich the framework environment. Today, as a Platinum Sponsor, Dreamonkey works side by side with the Quasar Core Team to coordinate the drive towards this objective.

We are already at work on a new image for the project, that can communicate its values and strengths more effectively. Our key concepts will be: clarity, accessibility and content.
As well as the communications aspects, various ideas emerged that will soon turn into important technical updates for developers. We are certain that 2021 will open the door to new improvements!

Remember that if you need to integrate the skills you need for your Quasar-developed project, our Dreamonkey team is here to help. Contact us.