IBM PC and compatible users likewise have many stereotypes attributed to their identity. The tendency to see PC users as being more rigid, less flexible, less creative and non-linear in thought processes is commonplace. They are also seen as being more from the accounting and finance side of a business, less from the creative and "cool" areas of a company (Sumner, 2007).
Guarding Against Biases in Survey
Concentrating on the functionality of the systems being tested, goals, objectives and needs of users as the basis of the questionnaire design and surveys needs to take precedence over testing by platform or brand. When a survey design and its questions are more focused on these aspects of a systems' functionality, performance and usability, the stereotypical biases attributed to each of these computing platforms are taken out of the research....
A additional safeguard is to work at creating a series of perceptual filters for the research study by testing the entire research methodology and questions on a variety of respondents to see if there is a bias not immediately apparent. The hypotheses of the research study also need to guard against favoring one platform over another, concentrating more on what the overarching goal or use of the system is. Anchoring the goals of the research with hypotheses that are more focused on performance or process-related efficiency is more likely to be unbiased vs. features alone.
References
Mansfield-Devine, S.. (2008). OS X - is it time to start worrying? Network Security, 2008(9), 7-9
James Sumner. (2007). What Makes a PC? Thoughts on Computing Platforms, Standards, and Compatibility. IEEE Annals of the History of…
