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Top-level
 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. 18 comments
 @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.) |
Gregory's Server
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.