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I've been thinking of helping open source project as a designer but I don't 1) which 2) how. 1) Most of the software I use is commercial or already well design
by enra 15y ago
I've been thinking of helping open source project as a designer but I don't 1) which 2) how.
1) Most of the software I use is commercial or already well designed(OSX/iOS), so I don't really have a personal itch to fix something I use.
2) I'm familiar with web technologies, git and development environments but I think the problem is politics or communication. I imagine it's lot easier to pull a repo, refactor a bunch of code and get it patched, than it is to submit a remake of the UI and get it on the product. Somebody probably likes the old one more and feels the 128 menu options where there for a reason.
I already have enough politics on my day job, so arguing on with developers on open source projects doesn't sound that inviting. I might be wrong, but it just doesn't seem like that designer friendly environments and maybe lacks the process/tools to be that.
- kleiba 15y agoSo, who's gonna do a weekend project that solves 1) by bringing designers and free software projects together? Kind of like a match.com made for content...
- ahoyhere 15y agoThis idea has been done to death, and when has it ever really worked?
- olalonde 15y agoHow about you start your own open source project as a designer and try to recruit developers to do the coding? Never seen this approach before but it might be worth trying.
- jerf 15y agoA common myth-let is that you start an open source project and people just come streaming out of the woodwork to work on it. The reality is that you are in stiff competition with thousands of projects for relatively rare resources. The global outcome is good, the local outcome is generally developer starvation. A developer with little more than mockups and no code to speak of is not going to win this competition, even with a truly stellar mockup.
- lovskogen 15y agoYou have to take ownership of the project you want to work on. As the designer you have to think of every scenario, and write why your solution will solve the problem. Get the developers interested.