FOSS Backstage Design 2026

Events
1

Dear FOSS Design Community!

Save the date: Excitingly, FOSS Backstage Design will be back in 2026. On March 18 we will host the one day event in Berlin at bUm.

The first half of #FOSSDesign will start with three curated talks to kick-off the day and to get to know eachother. In the afternoon, we’ll do a barcamp format where participants can shape the program. This way, everyone is invited to bring their own ideas, topics, and challenges to discuss.

What happened at previous events:

  • Martin Kaery aka Tantacrul gave insights into the redesign process of Audacity

  • Marta Marczykowska-Górecka gave us advice on how to talk to developers about design

  • Tobias Bernard spoke about designing & being embedded in the Gnome community: how design in FOSS allows it to break the constraints of only being for ‘nerds and hackers’

  • Barcamp topics included: Harmful UX patterns and their alternatives, Measuring design success in a FOSS project, Good starting points for newcomers to FOSS or Privacy by design (among others)

We are looking forward to the topics you bring to FOSS Backstage Design 2026!
Check out the video recordings from last years event on YouTube.

Connect, share, and collaborate:

  • More details on the website

  • Tickets are available here, regular tickets start at 35€.

  • You want more? FOSS Backstage takes place on March 16 and 17!

See you in Berlin!

PS: We are still looking for sponsors who would allow us to record and/or live stream FOSS Backstage Design or add to our catering.

PPS: Feedback? Questions? Ideas to make FOSSDesign even more interesting? Speaker suggestions? Feel free to reach out in the comments or via info@foss-backstage.de

4 Likes
2

Hi, thank you for sharing this information! I was there in 2024 and loved it.

At the moment, I’m thinking about going to this event to swap experiences, stay in touch with the team and meet new community members. Has anyone from our more active members planned to come along?

2 Likes
3

Hi Sven,

glad to hear that you consider coming again! By now, we could confirm Imani Joy (Mastodon) and Andy Betts (KDE) as speakers and are really excited about it. Moreover, we are sure that at the barcamp you will meet a lot of new and old faces from the community.

Hope to see you in March!

2 Likes
4

The line-up and schedule is now ready and I have to say I’m quite happy with it. We’ll have:

  • Andy Betts speaking about the Journey towards the new Design System for KDE Plasma and the lessons learned along the way
  • Lahari Chowtoori will share insights gained from interviews with Open Source professionals on the important work of non-technicals contributors (including designers & UX experts)
  • Dalai Felinto and Pablo Vazquez give an introduction into design work and prototyping at Blender
  • Imani Joy will tell us about her first year at Mastodon: The challenges of designing for decentralization, navigating community feedback and more.

Our barcamp will then give everyone at the event the chance to bring your own topics, questions and input and discuss it not only with our speakers, but with all attendees.

You can find an overview of the program here and get your ticket here.

Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

1 Like