Survey Responses Collected in 2024 Measuring End-users' and Experts' Experiences Being Engaged in Development of Scientific Tools

Engagement of end-users and fellow experts is fundamental to the creation of useful scientific tools. We conducted a survey-based research project to assist scientists responsible for creating scientific tools by evaluating their engagement of end-users and experts in the development of these tools. Our study includes a suite of six United States Geological Survey (USGS) projects that designed and implemented end-user and expert engagement to produce scientific tools for natural resource managers. USGS teams engaged end-users and experts (hereafter “participants”) across the United States from federal, state and local governments; universities; Tribes; Territories; and non-governmental organizations in the design and development of scientific tools intended to support end-users in their work. An online questionnaire sent to 113 participants (98 responded) measured satisfaction across several indicators, including preference for the frequency of engagement activities, whether there were sufficient opportunities to provide feedback, trust that feedback was considered, sufficient engagement of the necessary perspectives, and the level of functionality the tool would have for end-users.