FLOSSUX - A project about stronger UX in FLOSS projects!

Design Lounge Communication and collaboration
#1

Hi Everyone!

I am a student at the IT University of Copenhagen currently writing my master thesis on UX design. I have always loved open-source and thought that its implications are inspirational and intriguing. Naturally, my thesis had to involve the wonderful world of open-source. If you want to take a look at my findings from working with two open-source projects feel free to check out my GitHub project and create a discussion! This can be based on some of your experiences, how you have overcome some of the challenges of bringing great UX to FLOSS, or to outright disagree if you have a different experience.

It would mean a lot to my thesis to have some examples of use for the discussion, and you might find it interesting :wink:

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#2

Hi there @dani763f interesting research that I think many of us have thought about and worked within our FLOSS & Designer lives.

I worked on a similar set of research when I was at Ushahidi through a funded project: GitHub - Erioldoesdesign/opendesign: A methodology for distributed, asynchronous design contributions to software projects after the project’s funding ended I forked the repo which is this link.

But I know many of the members here have had many conversations about the topics in your research, some of us multiple times! another good place to find info is: Design & UX | A Space for Open Source Sustainers and the podcast the group does to talk about these challenges: https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/

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#3

Hi @Erioldoesdesign

Thanks for the great resources! Will check them out. Really nice to see the increasing interest in the design of FLOSS projects!

#4

It’s also worth checking out what @Memo_Es over at Open Collective is doing re. Open Design projects and processes: Open Collective Design. Design can drive action in the open… | by Guillermo Esparza | Open Collective | Medium

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#5

Wow! So many things i haven’t seen yet. And really cool that you have a podcast! :clap:

#6

Hi @dani763f

Wow, what a wonderful resource you have created. I love the fact that you used Just the Docs to present it too.

If you’d like to PR to delightful-humane-design… it would be a great resource there. I’ll also refer to your work at Humane Tech Community and announce it on the (all-FLOSS) Fediverse. Such valuable insights.

Regarding Fediverse… I think it has potential to become “Social Media Reimagined”, but it ‘suffers’ from the overly technical mindset - as you describe too - of its developers. Therefore at the SocialHub community I am advocating to adopt broader perspectives and attract people with different backgrounds and skillsets to the community. Among others in the Fediverse Futures category. The decentralized nature of the Fediverse and the way it allows a wide range of applications to be seamlessly integrated (in theory) poses very intriguing UX challenges. I don’t know what your plans are re:FLOSS involvement, but might be interested to keep an eye on innovations in the field and get involved :slight_smile:

PS. I’d also like to point at some recent discussions in our community that go well beyond UX, but are ultimately related: What makes a humane technologist?, Values-based social design and some Humane Design resources I posted earlier.

Update: I tooted the Fediverse here and posted to HTC here.

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#7

Hi @aschrijver

Thank you for the kind words! Yeah, Just the Docs is super awesome!
Will definitely consider a PR (when my writing is done, and i have removed some of the rough edges on FLOSS-UX), and thank you so much for the mentions it means a lot. I really want to maintain this project, also after finishing my thesis as many of the studies so far regarding UX/FLOSS are, just that, limited to the format of the traditional academic HCI study (which my findings suggest never reach developers).

I haven’t even heard about Fediverse and that is a very interesting challenge with regards to UX! After the thesis that looks like a super cool place to be for upcoming innovation and possibilities with UX involvement, so thank you so much once again!

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