Hello o/
I’ve been thinking about how to organize and communicate design with developers on FOSS projects. I’ve found something and I’m starting to use it myself on my projects.
The idea would be to include design documents directly into the git repo of the projects as markdown files, such as in a “design” directory at the root of the project.
Having all of the design directly in the repository also makes a kind of “statement” saying that design is just as important in the project as the code itself. As well as making easier for developers to access and participate in the design.
Within that “design” directory, it could be divided into 5 subdirectories for each part of the design process
empathy
orresearch
directory: Contains everything related to the research made to understand the users’ needs.- Example: user interview questions, user interview notes/transcript, links to interesting UX research, other notes, survey responses, etc.
define
directory: Contains everything related to the definition of the project’s scope- Example: epics/user stories (list of features), personas, etc.
ideate
directory: Contains things related to exploration, any all the ideas that came up for the project- Example: mood board, inspiration board, brainstorming session notes, etc
prototype
directory: Contains everything related to the creation of prototypes of the UI- Example: used design system, component library used, existing prototypes (Figma, Penpot), screenshots, etc
testing
directory: Contains everything related to the testing of the prototypes both by users and by developers/designers- Example: checklist (such as accessibility checklist), description of user testing scenarios and results (like list of tasks, evaluated axis, results, conclusions, heatmap), A/B testing, etc.
I know that this division by steps and what each of the steps are can be controversial (and that design is not linear), but I find it interesting nonetheless because it places the users’ needs as key factor and makes it easier to understand how the design process works in general.
Of course I’m also very much a beginner, so I would love to hear your thoughts on this.