Urtak X-Tabs

Not too long ago I blogged about the surveying website called Urtak: 


http://thesquashist.blogspot.com/2009/10/go-ask-urtak.html


Urtak is a very clean, agile way of getting feedback on whatever topic you are interested in, which in this case, of course, is squash. Urtak is the brainchild of Robert Gibralter and his son, Aaron. I contacted the Gibralters, pere et fils, and was so taken with the concept of collaborative surveying that we set up a special Urtak domain, named 'The Squashist's Opinion Emporium.' You will note that the Urtak questions and the Emporium are always available along the right-hand side of this page. Anybody can ask any question they want, so long as it is about squash, so ask away. The more responses, obviously, the better. 


But simply asking a squash question isn't so special. What makes Urtak so interesting is its ability to cross-tabulate the answers from one question to those of another. For example, 75% of respondents said they are 'addicted to squash.' Of those who answered positively, 71% said that their squash arm had grown bigger than their other arm. (Of those saying they were not addicted to squash, only 43% admitted to having a larger squash arm.) That's cool information. (Marketers might even get some valuable tidbits from the site.)


When asked whether they play 3 or more times a week, 70% answered yes. When cross-tabulated with the question, 'Do you throw your racket?', 33% of the frequent players admitted, yes, they hurl the racket from time to time. Only 13% of the non-frequent players admitted to that indiscretion. It seems that the frequent players can be a little tense about their playing, n'est-ce pas?


One more: When asked whether they had hit their own shin with their racket, 83% had experienced the ignominy of this act. Cross-tabulation with the question of whether one is a 'competitive golfer' obtained this interesting statistic: Only 12% of those who hit their shins are competitive golfers, whereas 44% of the non-shin-hitters are competitive golfers. Does that say something about muscular control in golf? Or that golfers are wimps? 


You get the idea. It's data mining for fun. And since I'm at work right now, supposedly being productive, it is also important to point out it is a little addictive, so be careful....