Notices by Scott Jenson (scottjenson@social.coop), page 3

However, I'm not a luddite, there ARE going to be good uses for LLM systems. I'm excited to try them! They just need to be focused more on AUGMENT vs. AUTOMATE.

We will *eventually* have a AGI but that is likely a VERY long way away (and I do understand exponential growth TYVM)

Systems that truly remove algorithmic drudgery will be a huge boon, but, at least for now, keeping a human in the loop seems prudent.

It will be service center phone handling. Every one hates IVR (e.g. "Press 1 for English") systems. But they mistakenly think it's because we hate pushing buttons. Wrong. We hate having no options or flexibility. ChatGPT is just going to get rid of the buttons, not the corporate need to funnel me through an exasperatingly limited set of choices. This isn't bad tech insight, it'll be intentional: automating their costs for generating customer friction.

ChatGPT will not serve us

As a UX Designer I have every reason to believe the hype around #ChatGPT is overblown. Why?

Nearly every single tech advance naively assumes human tasks are simple, even mathematical in nature when it is so clearly not the case.

The majority of my #UXDesign work has been convincing stakeholders to back the hell up, realizing that they have massively over simplified the problem.

For example, what is likely the first use of ChatGPT? 1/2

@rsms @joerick Agreed. It feels more like a RFP. Even the design example was pretty much API focused. But I agree, some type of process would be welcome.

What this seems to boil down to (which shouldn't be a surprise) is that the core team needs to a) care and b) create some process (even if light) to make sure things are tracked, discussed, and documented.

@303 @rsms @joerick

Home Assistant is one of my shining stars! They clearly get it and their product reflects that.

One of my goals is to find #FOSS projects that ARE doing things well (like HA, Penpot, MetaMuse, Audacity, etc) and promote them as positive examples to emulate.

@rsms oh completely agree. It's more of a social observation: tech debt often accumulates as small hacks are easy to accumulate. You need a strong centralized set of decisions to fix it. Decentralized vs centralized thinking.

My hypothesis is that ux requires more centralized thinking and that is just harder for open source projects.

@hans No unfortunately, the list is still quite small so far. I actually *have* listed some simple things maintainers could do in previous talks:
1. Contributor guidelines for UX
2. UX themed hashtags for issues (Better
3. Documented goals and decisions

Baby steps to be sure but also fairly easy to get started.

@nicholas @hans

One of the strongest indicators if an #OpenSource project has good #UXDesign is funding.

Funded projects hire people so one person doesn't have to do it all. In addition, you can actually hire #UX talent. Finally, with dedicated people so you don't have to rely on fickle contributors that will bolt if you don't allow their PR to merge.

That doesn't mean you don't actively engage your community! It just changes the dynamic.

Has anyone used the recent #KAIOS phones for #PWA development?

Curious how well they work given their smaller screen sizes.

I'm going to do some pro bono consulting to NGOs in India and while everything LOOKS reasonable, I'm just looking for any validating experience.
#web #webdev

@mairin I'm not saying that at all.

I do agree with you that FLOSS is positioned to believer a far superior UX.

I'm just honestly trying to understand why that doesn't always seem to be case. I'm not trying to 'fix' FLOSS, especially corners of it doesn't want to be fixed. More power to them.

I'm just trying to help the people that want help.

@mairin We would ALL do well to abide by those words.

@alcinnz @cassidyjames
It's just such a huge topic and, you know, it's perfectly fine for #FOSS to just be 'weird", that's part of it's charm.

And honestly, there will always be UX-indifferent repos and honestly, I don't care, it doesn't affect me if they don't want help.

What I'm trying to tackle are the teams that WANT help but don't know what to do. There is a clear mismatch and we should be able to figure this out.

@simulo completely agree this is NOT just an #opensource thing! However, it seems to be _easier_ for #FOSS projects.

My working theory is that there is a tendency for more decentralized decision making which, unfortunately, let's both creep into a project.

Repos can slide along, staying afloat for a long time, avoiding all sorts of best practices. While UX is the most famous way FOSS projects fail, my point is that it's not limited to just UX.

@matteogratton @simulo

Agreed, I using this "tech debt" point as a wedge to pry open a deeper, more sociological discussion of what is going on.

I started off naively, assuming teams just needed more "UX maturity" but it feels deeper than that. It's more of a lack of centralized planning, making harder decisions that clearly impact UX, but so many other things as well. Without understanding this lack of stronger leadership, I worry we'll never fix #UX in #FOSS projects.

I need some help. My current theory is that for #opensource projects, bad #UX is a lot like #techdebt, both just creep into a project slowly over time. Much of this is likely due to small contributions that are easier to accept politically.

So I'm wondering: Are there any good talks or blog posts about managing technical debt in #FOSS projects? I expect it would speak to the same stresses of managing code (and UX!) complexity.

TIL there is "bad blood" between between devs and UX designers about the differences between GNOME 2 and GNOME 3.

Is there any truth to this? Can anyone point me to anything that discusses this?

@mairin But #FLOSS is so much more the 'just a license"! There is an entire culture that goes with it, one which, at least statistically, has heavily leaned towards technical concerns and been light on UX concerns.

To be fair, there are problems with for profit software as well, but you should know better than anyone that UX designers have tried to help OS projects with limited effect. That seems worth discussing.

@mairin I really don't understand your point. If you want to say "UX is hard for everyone" then sure.

But if you're trying to say "FLOSS is mostly like closed SW but with better motivation" then we disagree.

FLOSS is built very differently, with a VERY different culture. There are precious few examples of it delivering great UX (and unfortunately many w/ bad UX). Those projects that DO excel, tend to be run more like closed shops: e.g Penpot, Audacity, and Home Assistant. Let's learn from them

@mairin Thanks for chiming in! I agree, my analogy is too limited. I was trying to make a point that is maybe a second level issue. Clearly, as you say, having a bad UX to start is the major issue.

My point was that "Fixing UX" requires more planning and even tradeoffs and that is just sociologically harder for most #FOSS teams to handle (as it just requires more maturity and process to make those decisions.

It feels similar to how tech debt creeps in.