4 ms·

My best open source contribution (judged by the fact that its founder wanted to meet me specifically when he was in town) was to a project that I use and deeply

by atoav 3y ago

My best open source contribution (judged by the fact that its founder wanted to meet me specifically when he was in town) was to a project that I use and deeply care about, yet I couldn't contribute as I am not fluent in the programming language used. So I did the next best thing and made an effort to collect a list of UI/UX papercuts and logical inconsistencies, each with a list of proposed options to fix it, sometimes including mock ups how I imagined it could look like. And posted it in multiple well sorted issues once I felt it had a certain level. I did this after giving the maintainer a friendly hint of the things that I planed and told them to not feel pressured to resolve any of that quickly (or at all). He still did and that lifted the software from a usable but rough piece of software to another level. Then as I was already very familiar with the UI I went and write the documentation for the usage. The worst open source contributions are the once where you quickly "fix" a thing that has never been broken all while not coordinating with the other people on the project.

ticoombs 3y ago
UI is honestly what a lot of open source projects need work on. The fact you took the time, made mocks and contributed to the documentation is amazing! People forget that there are more items to maintaining a product than writing code.
- lukan 3y ago
  "UI is honestly what a lot of open source projects need work on." I agree, but I would assume many maintainers themself would not agree. So the sensitive approach atoav took, (asking first) is probably the right thing to do.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    I think UI can be hard because it is hard to be objective about it. It is critical work, but at the same time if someone came out of nowhere, totally re-arranged all the UI elements, and was just, "trust me bro, this is better", i would be extremely doubtful.
    - ozim 3y ago
      At work for company product problem is that everyone has an opinion on UI/UX. It is just super hard to get people agree on one way or the other. No one has opinions on my database design or architecture. I can see how OSS project leaders that are developers not really wanting to deal wit UI/UX drama where everyone can make up something and you have to fight for every small detail.
      - vbezhenar 3y ago
        Does everyone have reasonable opinion? Like do they present an objective reasons for their opinion? If all they can say "I don't like it", this opinion means nothing. Rarely people can meaningfully argue about UI changes.
        ozim 3y ago
        Even if their “I don’t like it” doesn’t add value it still that they are business people or other devs or QA that we work together on daily basis. I still have to manage emotions and validate their feelings and I can’t just say “fuck off, we do it my way”. Which of course is taxing emotionally especially when I have to deal with my own emotions not to feel attacked when presenting something and gettin people “on the spot, ideas”.
        atoav 3y ago
        The relationship between the perceived importance of the thing and the amount of people who have strong opinions it is inversely proportional. The less meaningful a change is the more people dare to voice strong preferences.
      - xorcist 3y ago
        > No one has opinions on my database design or architecture. Oh dear, if you only knew ... I have personally seen both those things gridlock entire teams, to the point where people would rather quit than continue working.
      - sgarland 3y ago
        > No one has opinions on my database design or architecture. As a DBRE, I have many opinions about schema design. Unfortunately, they are often not well-received, because Some Grifting Blog told them their way was fine, and who am I to argue?
- kevincox 3y ago
  I agree. I have lots of projects that work very well but definitely need some UX work. Often times even features that are implemented but not exposed because I don't know how to make the UX work. Designs or a frontend developer would be amazing. But it always feels easier to a slide into a project with a bug fix or a small feature as opposed to redoing some UI that the owner did. It isn't always obvious if the owner things their design is great and is protective about it or if they would love someone to come in with some ideas. (And even then it may be a lost cause of you both have different tastes.)
gruntwork 3y ago
The contributions appear to be to Horizon EDA: https://github.com/horizon-eda/horizon https://github.com/horizon-eda/horizon.
- atoav 3y ago
  True : ) Still working with that software, although lately i didn't contribute much, partly because of day-job reasons (not enough time), partly because the software is already pretty darn good.
simonw 3y ago
"So I did the next best thing and made an effort to collect a list of UI/UX papercuts and logical inconsistencies, each with a list of proposed options to fix it, sometimes including mock ups how I imagined it could look like." I love that so much! It's very hard to judge the usability of your own software because you know it better than anyone else in the world. Pointing out sharp edges like this is just incredibly useful. Attaching research into options that can help is huge too - much more valuable than proposing a single fix without acknowledging that there might be multiple ways this could go.

by atoav 3y ago

ticoombs 3y ago

UI is honestly what a lot of open source projects need work on. The fact you took the time, made mocks and contributed to the documentation is amazing! People forget that there are more items to maintaining a product than writing code.

lukan 3y ago
"UI is honestly what a lot of open source projects need work on." I agree, but I would assume many maintainers themself would not agree. So the sensitive approach atoav took, (asking first) is probably the right thing to do.
- bawolff 3y ago
  I think UI can be hard because it is hard to be objective about it. It is critical work, but at the same time if someone came out of nowhere, totally re-arranged all the UI elements, and was just, "trust me bro, this is better", i would be extremely doubtful.
  - ozim 3y ago
    At work for company product problem is that everyone has an opinion on UI/UX. It is just super hard to get people agree on one way or the other. No one has opinions on my database design or architecture. I can see how OSS project leaders that are developers not really wanting to deal wit UI/UX drama where everyone can make up something and you have to fight for every small detail.
    - vbezhenar 3y ago
      Does everyone have reasonable opinion? Like do they present an objective reasons for their opinion? If all they can say "I don't like it", this opinion means nothing. Rarely people can meaningfully argue about UI changes.
      - ozim 3y ago
        Even if their “I don’t like it” doesn’t add value it still that they are business people or other devs or QA that we work together on daily basis. I still have to manage emotions and validate their feelings and I can’t just say “fuck off, we do it my way”. Which of course is taxing emotionally especially when I have to deal with my own emotions not to feel attacked when presenting something and gettin people “on the spot, ideas”.
      - atoav 3y ago
        The relationship between the perceived importance of the thing and the amount of people who have strong opinions it is inversely proportional. The less meaningful a change is the more people dare to voice strong preferences.
    - xorcist 3y ago
      > No one has opinions on my database design or architecture. Oh dear, if you only knew ... I have personally seen both those things gridlock entire teams, to the point where people would rather quit than continue working.
    - sgarland 3y ago
      > No one has opinions on my database design or architecture. As a DBRE, I have many opinions about schema design. Unfortunately, they are often not well-received, because Some Grifting Blog told them their way was fine, and who am I to argue?
kevincox 3y ago
I agree. I have lots of projects that work very well but definitely need some UX work. Often times even features that are implemented but not exposed because I don't know how to make the UX work. Designs or a frontend developer would be amazing. But it always feels easier to a slide into a project with a bug fix or a small feature as opposed to redoing some UI that the owner did. It isn't always obvious if the owner things their design is great and is protective about it or if they would love someone to come in with some ideas. (And even then it may be a lost cause of you both have different tastes.)

gruntwork 3y ago

The contributions appear to be to Horizon EDA: https://github.com/horizon-eda/horizon https://github.com/horizon-eda/horizon.

atoav 3y ago
True : ) Still working with that software, although lately i didn't contribute much, partly because of day-job reasons (not enough time), partly because the software is already pretty darn good.

simonw 3y ago

"So I did the next best thing and made an effort to collect a list of UI/UX papercuts and logical inconsistencies, each with a list of proposed options to fix it, sometimes including mock ups how I imagined it could look like." I love that so much! It's very hard to judge the usability of your own software because you know it better than anyone else in the world. Pointing out sharp edges like this is just incredibly useful. Attaching research into options that can help is huge too - much more valuable than proposing a single fix without acknowledging that there might be multiple ways this could go.