Continuing conversations about fellowships/Internships in open Source Design

As mentioned in the community call:

A big problem is getting a design implemented. Developers in open source projects pick according to what they want to work on (or what their bosses want them to work on) and these are rarely user facing improvements.

One thing we could do to support a designer and a developer as a team working on a small project. I see several interesting advantages here:

  • The improvements will actually be part of the software instead of likely staying in plans and mockups.
  • Which is also something directly helpful to open source projects increasing motivation for mentoring both designer and dev.
  • Have both participants learn to work with a designer/dev, respectively.
  • Working closely together also decreases incentives for big-plan-upfront design (or coding!) making it an interesting case for close collaboration
  • Could yield some great reflections and experiences that help us in future projects.

Now, two people is twice the money needed. But…

  • I think it would be relatively easy to get the dev funded by someone other org.
  • The gain gets more graspable for tech orgs who can fund. If we have the collaboration build in we can sell it not as design being produced but as bringing well desiged features to a software project.
  • Just like we are, funding orgs will likely to be interested in the collab aspect more than in the mere design aspect.
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