Design, build and launch the 2025 Tor Browser user survey

Closed Issue created 7 months ago by donuts

The last Tor Browser user survey was conducted in early 2021, and although the questions asked were relatively basic, many of our colleagues outside the UX team found the results useful in their work. Since then, in addition to the existing data gathered here being out of date, our engineering teams sometimes ask questions that are hard to answer through qualitative user research.

As such, we have decided to conduct a second Tor Browser user survey in the near future to refresh this data. To ensure we're asking the right questions, we should also chat to each engineering team and solicit ideas for questions from them directly.

Quick Links:

survey demo
Figma file rendition [identical content, just presented in a single view]

Author: @alicia

Project Overview:

The goals of this research activity are to 1) develop an early schema for assessing Tor Browser user experience using qualitative and quantitative methods and 2) source user feedback, with an emphasis on the 'global south'.

Research Objectives:

The UX team seeks to build on today's existing understanding of who Tor users are, surface new or surprising user motivations and tool use cases, validate/ invalidate known or suspected pain points, and source inspiration for areas for improvement.

From a UX processes and research program maturity level, this survey functions as an early effort to 1) standardize what user feedback we solicit to evaluate user experience and 2) articulate what user experience means as it relates to Tor Browser. While future surveys will likely evolve in scope, an additional purpose of the survey is to articulate 'durable metrics': metrics the organization can compare over time. Such metrics afford us insight into how applicable product interventions may come to inform future user experience.

Methodology:

Survey featuring closed and open-ended response components.

Methodology Rationale:

Surveys can capture self-reported user behaviors and attitudes at scale, something purely qualitative methods (e.g., in-person usability testing, focus groups, one on one semi-structured interviews) alone cannot.

Prior survey participation (~50K+ valid responses) suggests that we're uniquely positioned to gather a quantitatively robust snapshot of user experience.

Related issues from previous surveys:

First Tor Browser User Survey (2021)

Snowflake Alpha User Survey (2021)

VPN Discovery Survey (2021)