Scott Jenson
@pevohr We have a basic disagreement: UX doesn't toddle off into the corner, fiddle for a bit, turn around and yell "Tada!" and ask you to like it. It's a process, balancing tech stack, user needs, and especially in #OpenSource, community concerns.
My point is that great UX is NOT an individual but a team effort (and if by team you mean a few people, that's fine by me) But I can't stress enough, it's NOT a solo effort.
UX designers that try solo are almost always rejected, so give up
Scott Jenson
@pevohr Totally fair and gets to the heart of the issue. My theory is that the best way to attract (and keep!) UX designers is for the core team (large or small) to do a bit of planning/strategy work to make it clear a) they understand and support UX b) have a set of tasks for new-comers to start on and c) will work with the designers to navigate the process of landing the changes.
To repeat: UX is a team sport, UX designers that approach a repo and don't see that aren't likely to join in
Paul Rohr
@scottjenson What's harder has always been recruiting talented devs + UX folks to do the heavy lifting.
Hence my attempts to suggest the kinds of approaches which have historically gotten traction. Specifically what happens when individual devs + UX folks collaborate to do their very best work together.
Because the best results come when you can show your work, right? (Not only what an experience feels like, but how it came to be.) That's what #OpenSource #UX should be.
Paul Rohr
@scottjenson For the record, once any small-scale #OpenSource project takes off, those cultures have a long history of successfully attracting non-devs to help with testing, a11y, i18n, + QA.
Motivated users can quickly grow into those roles using whatever tooling the original devs chose. And even there the gating factor is reducing implementation friction so devs are freed up to do other stuff.
Scott Jenson
@pevohr That's helpful thanks. I have been talking to various #OpenSource "teams" though (Audacity, PenPot, Gnome, Krita, and others) and there really **are** teams of folks working together.
My basic thesis is that software has grown in complexity and there are a wide range of things expected of it, everything from unit testing, accessibility, internationalization, QA, and yes, UX design. These are ALL extra work and can't easily be done easily by 2-3 volunteers. (1/x)
Paul Rohr
Thanks, @scottjenson. I've been taking at face value your original question way upthread here:
"What do YOU feel #FOSS needs in order to embrace #UX?"
You didn't seem to be getting answers from the "FOSS teams" you were addressing in that post, so I jumped in to give you one possible reason why. Namely, they don't exist as such.
What I've been trying to use this 🧵 for is to start explaining how these communities work to help you find a way in.
Scott Jenson
@pevohr I've clearly misunderstood. Sorry. You seemed to take issue with me using the word "teams". I got the impression you just wanted UX folk (at least at first) to just get in there alone and try to fix some low hanging problems solo. This is something I've heard frequently. ("e.g. Can you redo the icons?")
Devs may start this way. These **are** possible things to do. I'm just saying they aren't ways to do effective UX work (or attract designers). UX process isn't the same as programming
Paul Rohr
@scottjenson Huh? I think you're mistaking my position with someone else's.
I've worked in a variety of these cultures -- corporate vs. garage, proprietary vs. open source. As someone who's been an advocate for UX improvements in every product I've shipped, I want *more* involvement from the kinds of folks you speak to/for.
https://elk.zone/hachyderm.io/@pevohr/109475757951239936
Which is why I'm trying to help you do the ethnographic work of understanding some of those cultural differences.
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