 There is far too much 'walking on eggshells" in #OpenSource, mostly because the power lies with the people that are the most easily offended. I've been clobbered for saying the "#UX of opensource isn't great". The advice is always the same: That is great advice, for a dysfunctional relationship. To be clear, I'm NOT saying be dictatorial! I'm saying we can't fix a system that doesn't want to be fixed. 67 comments
@paninid There certainly are some strong counter examples of great design in opensource. And to be sure, there are lots of bad corp UX out there. I'm NOT saying "OpenSource is doomed to bad UX", I'm saying it's mostly run by programmers that don't understand UX and wonder why UX designers don't want to play. @paninid @scottjenson no it's just plain wrong. Is UX even a word fitting for open source? Open source is a concept and not a program/app. Can a concept have user experience? If you say oss UX is bad you are generalizing everything written with this idea/ license, which might be true for a big part or even a majority but saying everything open source had bad ux is plainly wrong. Also why not fork instead of getting your PR in? Make a fork, make your UX improvements be happy if origin uses yours. @SomeAnoTooter This can be improved. That's why I made this post, I strongly believe OSS can have great UX design. I'm just tired of *some* maintainers in OSS telling me that it's entirely MY responsibility to package up my work into tiny bites so it's acceptable to maintainers that don't really want a better UX. @scottjenson you wrote: "for saying the "#UX of opensource isn't great"", so yes you at least wrote it here. Yes you are correct with the engineering focus. @scottjenson that sounds reasonable well, but I feel like 1. can sadly be more challenging with some people.  @scottjenson @SomeAnoTooter I think it is this part 2 which is a problem here. A lot of UX stuff is highly subjective and about creative control, and this is where the design-by-commitee that is a cornerstone of OSS might not work. Or at least I've yet to see it work except in very few cases @scottjenson I feel the best thing on discussions is always assume good faith and probably misunderstandings instead of taking seemingly "bad words/ criticism/ demands" too serious. Ignoring might sometimes be the best strategy. Sure most things are easier said/ written then done. Good Design must at least start with the maintainers. Designers can't "PR our way" into a good design, pushing design into project that doesn't really want it. I agree with the advice above! We can go slow. I'm just saying it has to be done JOINTLY. The maintainer/core team has to want UX *before* the PRs come rolling in. And before people start with the "but corp UX is bad too" defence, of course that's true (and also quite irrelevant). Open source, in many cases, is trying to reach the entire world. We need to work on making the software approachable and useful to everyone. There are TONS of UX designers that are here right now, wanting to help but are rebuffed and told "they are doing it wrong" so guess what? They leave. If OpenSource really is understaffed, that's a curious way to treat willing hands. One last point: I'm not saying ALL #OpenSource software has bad UX! There are lots of positive examples. I'm just saying that, as a culture, it has some maturing to do. The very old and very tired advice of "go slow and try a small PR" works great for engineering (and documentation). I'm just saying that doesn't work for UX, which requires a more coordinated, shared teamwork approach.  @scottjenson who do you think is worth looking at for good FLOSS UX? I think there is a real tension between closed product UX (which is often about ease when it is pro user and capture when it is pro VC) and FLOSS UX which should be about control and deep understanding as well. I think there are other issues as well, but I'm not sure who I'd look at as a good example here. @otfrom I've given two talks on this very issue https://youtu.be/ZLmXlhJMQmM?si=hpzajRIOU_K3Kl0u @scottjenson 👆 this is a good and interesting talk and is giving me a lot to think about. (Happy to talk about it more but don't want my thoughts to come across in a reply guy manner while they are still pretty unformed, unless it is helpful for you to get first impressions) @otfrom I'm happy to chat more as well! I'm travelling right now but will be back home middle of next week.  @scottjenson have you seen @tantacrul's videos? he did a series critiquing the UX of music engraving software, his review of open-source MuseScore led to him getting hired as MuseScore's head of design and carte blanch to rewrite most of the UI... possibly ideal outcome for everyone! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qct6LKbneKQ @JackEric @tantacrul Yes! He was one of the success stories I talked about in my talk on great UX in opensource. @scottjenson the @team@neos.cms (to which I also belong) is very interested and open to work with someone. We just didn’t have any luck yet to find an UX person interested in helping us out since the original concept was made years ago. @scottjenson that would be amazing! Maybe drop me a line at christian@flownative.com and let’s set something up. @scottjenson there should be on-boarding support & training, workshops, no more than 5 steps (if another software is required as a step, all those steps within that are a barrier and should be counted), so that more people interested in getting onto Linux, Open Source, FOSS, can do that. It’s scary, it’s NOT easy, and people in tech grossly underestimate the difficulty many people have today with just the idea of moving to any new platform, let alone one they barely hear about or understand. @scottjenson @JoBlakely In general #OSS, at all levels, would be significantly better if the word "idiot" was never used again.  @scottjenson Makes me wonder how FOSS projects started/ran by UX designers would look like. There’s also developers that have had bad experiences like this, and they might be interested in projects ran differently. (Usual disclaimer applies. Every time I’ve had an idea, someone else already did. So for all I know some projects are ran like this already.) @matzipan There are lots of teams that do this! I'm not saying "ALL #OpenSource has bad UX" I'm saying 'there is too much bad #UX and I'd like us to improve how we do it in OSS. @scottjenson “doesn’t really want it.” Has anyone ever said why they don’t? I can guess, but it’s easy to be wrong when guessing. Makes me curious about what is at play. @scottjenson I expect if you go in and say 'your ux isn't great' then yeah you should expect a less than warm reception. It's not helpful and likely you're not the first person to point it out, and the maintainers probably don't have the training or resources to make things better. You're more likely to be welcomed if you suggest some actionable designs, or ask if they would be open to a pr with potential usability improvements, and then raise a pr. They'd probably be happy for the help! @PossiblyMax This is what I mean by walking on eggshells. I didn't come in swinging saying things are terrible. I'm saying that even small changes (which I HAVE tried) get shot down. It's demoralizing. It's not just me, many other UX designers point this out. There just MIGHT be something else to talk about. I'm not saying maintainers are horrible. I agree they likely do want better UX. I'm saying the 'just a small PR' advice just doesn't work in practice. @scottjenson Thank you for saying this!! I think your take is just right, and it matches my experience as a design-focused full-stack developer working on FOSS. Now I'm going to go listen to your talks. @scottjenson Caveat: the labor shortage in FOSS is real. Just have to look at the xz debacle for recent evidence. But I agree that to get more UX people working on FOSS, they conversation around how good design happens needs to change. A bit of a chicken or egg situation, maybe? @joemull That's why I've given a few talks that focus on the OSS projects with great UX. Look to them as positive role models to be emulated. Back in the 80s, Apple was really the only corp company that was really focusing on UX and companies started to emulate them. I'd like the same to happen to #OpenSource @scottjenson @joemull I always think it is funny that some will argue against making projects look modern. Good UI/UX is super important to the success of a project. Keep up the good work.  @scottjenson guess that's "You don't get to make large decisions until you have merit/contribution history within the project". That makes some sense, but since code contributions are most impactful and any other contribution barely recognized and hard to make, it is not a winning game for non-devs to play. @simulo And if designers PRs are constantly getting shot down, they don't have any any path to actually made significant contributions. BTW, I'm not saying that tiny incremental PRs is an impossible process. There are UX designers that have made this work. I'm just saying it's exhausting and so terribly inefficient. @nekohayo Yikes, sorry to hear about that. Yeah, the online community issues of open source can cut both ways, that's for sure.  @scottjenson on the contrary, i often find more dictatorial maintainership regimes to be similarly less receptive to UX concerns @hipsterelectron curious you'd pick out that specific word as 'what I'm asking for'. I'm not. The key wors were "jointly" and "teamwork" @scottjenson i'm sorry! i was intending to reply in support of your thesis, that more conscientious projects are often more receptive to UX concerns, and that receptivity to UX concerns is often a great indicator of project health. my apologies for using what i now realize is rather pointed language @scottjenson didn't have the chops to write out a more thorough response but for example amongst build tools/build systems the receptivity to design and UX framings is often a direct result of having established the sort of communication process you describe with the user community; without that interaction, you get people seeing build tools as academic projects focused solely on some performance metric (for example)  You mention maintainers, that's a curious word to use. Because it speaks of static and unchanging babysitting rather than positive and ambitious creation. In Inkscape our ux design model is to make ux and design skills have the same respect as labor as any programmer. To give developers a way to ask for help and spaced for a ux team to exist and find itself outside of the shadow of code creation. Adam Belis has done impressive things. Though I admit mostly with patience. @doctormo I'm happy to use a different word, it's just the one I've heard most often. That's great news about UX roles at Inkscape! I didn't know that. So much of ANY productive accomplishment seems to be based with 'having a lot of patience'.  @doctormo @scottjenson Inkscapes ux model asks to make friends with a dev first. Patience and respect for work won't do. Onboarding is hard as there is no coordination, or a team. Makes team play really hard. Yes, building relationships is the best way to operate when there's no money. Honestly if there's more investment going forwards, and I hope there is, it'll be easier for the ux team to create entire projects and get them funded rather than having to depend on relationships to carry the labour exchange. @doctormo @scottjenson Of course money makes everything easier. Like any project engagement ux comes with costs and benefits. Treating ux as a too expensive afterthought just keeps away contributions entirely – a pretty high price to pay as well. Building a community is hard. Very. It's not too expensive compared to anything else. Everything is too expensive when you have nothing. Programming, documentation, posting screenshots to the website, triaging bugs. It's all very fragile because every one of them depends on someone volunteering their time and trying to work with other people who must also be convinced to volunteer their time. (hence relationships) Culturally we ask developrs to consult with the ux team often. It's not an afterthought. @doctormo We've had this conversation before, about the lack of money making things hard. I agree. But I'm asking for things that shouldn't cost more money: coordination, teamwork, and planning. Are these hard and take more time? Absolutely! I'm not saying they are easy. But they are required for UX to be effective. I don't see money as the gating concern. Just to be clear, I'm making a point here about #FOSS as a general community, I'm not making any specific comment about Inkscape. I know We can make better culture. But I also think you underestimate how much a factor resources play in coordination. Not just money, it could be relationships. I.e. A community that forcefully coordinates, it just forcefully coercive and exploiting labour. And I don't think you intend to have labour problems. But that's where you end up. @doctormo @scottjenson I also think coordination is a different story of skills from coding, uxd, uxr, etc. I know for me that my coordination skills get burned up in my day job and I don't have a lot of headspace to do that outside of work, but nor do I wish to be managed, so for my stuff I just give it to the universe to do what they like @doctormo Are you implying that coordination is exploitative? I assume you coordinate on Inkscape? If so, how do you do it so it's not? Pretty sure it was @laurenshof that coined the term "FOSS Brutalism Design" in a thread I once read and I am 💯 for this becoming a regularly used hashtag for this sort of stuff... ..so I'ma tag it here... |
Gregory's Server
@scottjenson saying the UX of opensource isn't great is saying the Quiet Part Out Loud™?