Tennis News You Can Use
The USTA sent an email last week with a link to a survey directed to all League Players. It was also indicated that the email was sent because the recipient is “a valued member of the USTA.” It makes me wonder if there is a list somewhere of USTA members who are not valued.
As an engineer by education and profession, I am a big fan of data-based decision making. In order to make data-based decisions, it is essential to have access to… wait for it… data. It is encouraging to see a concerted effort by the USTA to collect the information required for informed decisions.
The cybersecurity nerd in me stumbled across some data integrity issues with the technical implementation of the survey. In short, it is possible to take it repeatedly and anonymously. I seriously doubt that there is anyone so passionate about USTA League tennis that stuffing the ballot box would be an issue, but it could happen.
I am always fascinated by the substance of questions included in a survey. The very existence provides a tiny window into the types of things that the surveying organization deems to be important. Survey design and construction also potentially reveals future considerations that are anticipated by the organization.
As one tangential observation, the USTA survey starts with an odd disclaimer that COVID-19 impacted the country in different ways this year but that feedback is still very important. In fact, that statement must be positively acknowledged by the survey participant before responding to the actual questions. Why would that disclaimer be needed? It implies organizational skepticism about the utility of the data collected.
Because I am a team captain, I received several questions that are obviously intended only for people who are captaining in some capacity. I went back and verified that these questions are not presented to the user if the “Captain” box is not selected in the basic demographic section of the survey.
Based on the survey construction, the majority of the actionable data will come from free form text fields. Depending on the volume of the responses, it is going to take considerable time to manually sift through all that raw data to categorize it in a meaningful way.
Some survey participants may not bother to enter answers in the text fields. Data entry on a mobile device can be a barrier to full participation. For example, there is one text field requesting identification of the the biggest challenges faced by captains. Another requests information on how the USTA can improve the situation surrounding those challenges. I submitted long answers for both.
Not surprisingly, some of the questions centered around the recent updates in TennisLink to enhance the ability for players and teams to find each other. That section centered on “consumer” awareness of the feature and whether it had been used. Additionally, there was a free form field to enter the reasons why the captain had not used it.
As evidenced by two posts last November, I am most certainly aware of the new enhancements. “USTA League Registration Improvements” outlined my understanding of the new features. Additionally, “The Definitive Players Guide to USTA League Team Descriptions” was arguably one of the most humorous posts from 2021.
The substance of the captain’s section of the survey makes me wonder if the team type features adoption rate is lower than anticipated coming out of the gate. The USTA should already have access to the actual data on the number of captains that have used this feature. Surveying for whether captains have used it should not be necessary.
It is possible that the USTA is aware that the new features are not being used and the USTA is attempting to figure out why. A lack of awareness could be a communications issue, which is a chronic problem for the USTA. The survey also appears to be casting about for systemic issues that might prevent captains from embracing the new features.
Alternatively, perhaps I am overthinking it (again) and the survey was not that intentional. It is possible that it exists simply to fulfill the charter of the some national league committee that has periodic collection of data as one of their responsibilities.
In the absence of visibility on whether contact information would be coupled with individual answers, I found myself embedding my email address along with many of my responses. It will be interesting to see if anyone from the USTA ever reaches out directly. I would love to have a real conversation on the technical features that would enhance the league participation experience.
Probably that is just wishful thinking. Eventually there will probably be a series of long and boring posts enumerating my ideas on this site. My apologies in advance.
