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>I don't get why designers are always doing stuff like redesigning website X for free. Simple. Because if they did assist with FOSS projects much of the time

>I don't get why designers are always doing stuff like redesigning website X for free. Simple. Because if they did assist with FOSS projects much of the time they would be dealing with developers who (a) think they know what users want better (b) have no respect for designers and (c) believe obscure feature X is more important than UI. Remember this is the same group of people e.g. on Slashdot/Reddit who think the iPad is an overpriced toy and think people are sheep for buying it.

cpressey 14y ago
Given that FOSS developers are, in some sense, their own users, (a) and (c) are not always unjustified. For my personal use case for LibreOffice specifically, I don't give a damn how ugly it is, and I'm willing to have some patience if it's a bit slow, but crashing or hanging on a 160-page document is unacceptable. So adding a designer to the project wouldn't add any value to me.
polshaw 14y ago
I agree with the point that there is a lack of respect for designers in the area, and IMO more significantly, they would not be allowed full control of design; hard work could easily be ruined by differing opinions. But FFS why did you have to bring apple in to this. Absolutely nothing to do with this, quit it.
- BobbyBonsai 14y ago
  > I agree with the point that there is a lack of respect for designers in the area... That's because it looks like everything designers are touching (Gnome3, Unity and partly Firefox) starts to turn to crap. Yes, I completely respect Designers and I understand that they can do wonders for every FLOSS project and I know that this sentence is completely biased...but there are many examples out there were a designer (or multiple) are trying to stuff their vision down our throats without any afterthoughts.
coldtea 14y ago
>But FFS why did you have to bring apple in to this. Absolutely nothing to do with this, quit it. No, actually he made a very good point by bringing Apple into it. Apple, see, is the very place were design and UX reigns supreme over other considerations (of course they also have faults, every team has). So, OSS developers bashing Apple and its UIs, are not the very best community to nurture biding UI designers.
lkozma 14y ago
This might be another good reason for the UNIX philosophy of keeping functionality (command line) and GUI separate.
PommeDeTerre 14y ago
After the GNOME 3 disaster, it's understandable why many developers within the open source community have become skeptical of designers and their contributions. Within a single release cycle, these designers managed to destroy what was once among the most vibrant of all open source projects. The existing GNOME users have been alienated by the absolutely horrible UI. Among their ranks were many good developers and other contributors, too, whose absence now prevents the project from recovering. A large portion of these users moved on to KDE or Xfce, rather than MATE, causing further harm to the GNOME project and community. There are other cases, too. Windows 8 and the UI changes starting with Firefox 4 are other recent, and major, examples of the work of designers going terribly wrong. The end result is software that is nearly unusable, or much less usable than previous versions. The skepticism you describe is very well earned and deserved.
- takluyver 14y ago
  This neatly illustrates another problem with redesigning popular software: no matter how much time you spend, no matter how beautiful you make the design, the people who're already using it are used to its current layout, and don't care about learning a new interface. If you could give people a completely fresh, unprejudiced choice between Gnome 2 & 3, Windows 7 & 8, or Firefox 3.5 & 18, I bet many of them would choose the newer version. I don't think (most of) these UI decisions are objectively bad, and over the long run they might even pay off. But when the user upgrades and suddenly can't see how to make it Frobnicate, they get angry.
  - xradionut 14y ago
    After you've learned hundreds of interfaces over 3 decades, you learn that newer can be, but isn't always better. So when I see YAIR, (Yet Another Interface Redesign), I get a case of deja poo, (I have seen this shit before).

cpressey 14y ago

Given that FOSS developers are, in some sense, their own users, (a) and (c) are not always unjustified. For my personal use case for LibreOffice specifically, I don't give a damn how ugly it is, and I'm willing to have some patience if it's a bit slow, but crashing or hanging on a 160-page document is unacceptable. So adding a designer to the project wouldn't add any value to me.

polshaw 14y ago

I agree with the point that there is a lack of respect for designers in the area, and IMO more significantly, they would not be allowed full control of design; hard work could easily be ruined by differing opinions. But FFS why did you have to bring apple in to this. Absolutely nothing to do with this, quit it.

BobbyBonsai 14y ago
> I agree with the point that there is a lack of respect for designers in the area... That's because it looks like everything designers are touching (Gnome3, Unity and partly Firefox) starts to turn to crap. Yes, I completely respect Designers and I understand that they can do wonders for every FLOSS project and I know that this sentence is completely biased...but there are many examples out there were a designer (or multiple) are trying to stuff their vision down our throats without any afterthoughts.

coldtea 14y ago

>But FFS why did you have to bring apple in to this. Absolutely nothing to do with this, quit it. No, actually he made a very good point by bringing Apple into it. Apple, see, is the very place were design and UX reigns supreme over other considerations (of course they also have faults, every team has). So, OSS developers bashing Apple and its UIs, are not the very best community to nurture biding UI designers.

lkozma 14y ago

This might be another good reason for the UNIX philosophy of keeping functionality (command line) and GUI separate.

PommeDeTerre 14y ago

After the GNOME 3 disaster, it's understandable why many developers within the open source community have become skeptical of designers and their contributions. Within a single release cycle, these designers managed to destroy what was once among the most vibrant of all open source projects. The existing GNOME users have been alienated by the absolutely horrible UI. Among their ranks were many good developers and other contributors, too, whose absence now prevents the project from recovering. A large portion of these users moved on to KDE or Xfce, rather than MATE, causing further harm to the GNOME project and community. There are other cases, too. Windows 8 and the UI changes starting with Firefox 4 are other recent, and major, examples of the work of designers going terribly wrong. The end result is software that is nearly unusable, or much less usable than previous versions. The skepticism you describe is very well earned and deserved.

takluyver 14y ago
This neatly illustrates another problem with redesigning popular software: no matter how much time you spend, no matter how beautiful you make the design, the people who're already using it are used to its current layout, and don't care about learning a new interface. If you could give people a completely fresh, unprejudiced choice between Gnome 2 & 3, Windows 7 & 8, or Firefox 3.5 & 18, I bet many of them would choose the newer version. I don't think (most of) these UI decisions are objectively bad, and over the long run they might even pay off. But when the user upgrades and suddenly can't see how to make it Frobnicate, they get angry.
- xradionut 14y ago
  After you've learned hundreds of interfaces over 3 decades, you learn that newer can be, but isn't always better. So when I see YAIR, (Yet Another Interface Redesign), I get a case of deja poo, (I have seen this shit before).