In yesterday’s community call there were 3 of us and we did our general intros, explanation of OSD calls and community generally.
We then spoke about:
How the US govt. (and other govts.) is funding OSS tools going forward and some conversations about that
New community member asked about the speed, pace and processes involved in contributing design to FOSS given some contributions they’re working on at a project where the ‘users’ of the FOSS are very eager for certain features and ‘speed’ feels ‘quick’. We gave some advice and some of our experiences. Communication of where a contribution is at is more important than ‘being fast’ generally and especially if you’re pure voluntary.
@MarsBarLee That sounds like a great proposal! A lot of All software use and development happens in a social context and I think comics are great to give people an insight in something “is like” (e.g. discussing how to go about a new feature, reviewing a design, dealing with a difficult community member). There are just some ideas, obviously comics could also do other things. Do you have some examples of what you suggest? (or did in the past already?)
Hi there!
I’m new here and am interested in learning more about human centred design and contributing to FOSS’s UX. I found and subscribed to the monthly call calendar. There is something that makes me wonder: while there is an appointment for the first Wednesday each month, the calendar holds a second recurring event every 2nd Wednesday. Yet I could not find more information about that 2nd event. Is this by purpose and if yes, what is it for?
Thank you in advance,
Sven
Hi there Sven, lovely to meet you and have you here.
The second calendar hold was an IST timezone friendly event. For our friends in UTC+ 4-10 timezones our regular time was past midnight for them and we wanted to reflect a time that could be friendlier.
My own personal intention was to always make both of the monthly meetings to hold space but the IST friendly call tends to be in the middle of my work day so I haven’t been able to make more than 1.
Specifically, I would like to talk about the comics distributed at last month at SciPy! (a conference about “Scientific Python”: the programming language Python, specifically open source projects in science, math and research)
Here’s a link to a digital, flip-able version of the comic!
We distributed 300 print copies to 500 in-person conference attendees and a digital version as well!
Ongoing jobs page maintenance by Eriol - is now emailing and updating the jobs page again to ensure the current jobs are still active. See progress here on a google spreadsheet
Re. comics in FLOSS
so the trick now is to measure the effectiveness between RTFM + comics… and an easier one is which do humans (normal ones, less engineer ones) gravitate toward …
I am curious to know if you did user testing with disabled users using screen readers
Just found this for a comic builder, seems to be open source, not sure how good it is though:
there is plenty of academic evidence for using symbols/graphics vs words… that people understand graphics much better + faster. Duh, that’s built into our bio. Will post paper.
The only interesting/tricky thing about graphical information is again putting alt text for those graphical information itself.
ultimate goal: comics with nostarch press
Re. Open health design
Question sort of off-topic – did you use any specific tool (except inkscape ) to make that graph under “Open Source Health Design Projects”? Seems to work nicely and responsive
Re. sustainOSS onf
Can I add some more specific communities?
I will add some from a11y space
In the September call, I shared updates on Open Source Comics and bringing conversations about design into the Scientific Python space!
Highlight OSD community in NumPy community calls, employer’s techshares
Getting other people/projects to make comics as well, possibility of funding to make comics with NumFOCUS Small Development Grant
Simon: Do comics more for marketing or documentation?
Comics can make documentation easier to understand
Comics can be used to market a product, to “sell” it
Where Comics Fit into Documentation, using the Diátaxis framework: https://diataxis.fr/
Belen: Could you teach other open source contributors to make comics?
Mars: Yes! One of my aims is to “equip non-designers with design skills to make their own comics”. At my employer’s techshare, I talked to devs about drawing warmups or creativity excercises, such as doodling in a collaborative google jamboard
It would be amazing to run a comic-making workshop with FOSS developers
Jan: Shared Unflattening, “a graphic novel by artist and researcher Nick Sousanis that was originally the first dissertation from Columbia University to be written in a comic book format.”
Juhan: one purpose of comics: showing the problem, showing solutions (vs talking/TLDR)
Nimisha asked the question of: ‘How can we involve developers in the design process more’ or ‘how to make design more accessible to devs’
@jdittrich Jan D mentioned about bringing developers into a design process
@ei8fdb Bernard also mentioned about developers coming along to observe user testing but not to be involved and have a debrief
@MarsBarLee Mars spoke about some of the accessible ways that devs
Ngoc talked about opening up their design process and being involved in the dev team circle by doing that they learn about the process and the gaps where design can help out.
Nimisha talked about the design docs not being used much, they look around in the same software to see how e.g. buttons look and then execute visuals from that
Some more comments from the chat include:
I like that it pushed one to think about process and what-you-can-show. It is very easy in a text to hide behind a big (design) word.
Designers can also be proactive about how we’d like to work with developers. Understanding their routines and ask to be part of their sprint/review circle/ etc as observers can be very helpful
These books might be of interest for you when trying to get developers interested/willing to sketch:(you’re probably familiar with these): Sketching the user experience understanding comics I used these books to help me when sketching. (I came from an engineering background and the idea of sketching was alien to me - I’m not an artist, sketcher) An important thing is to get across to them that sketching isn’t (necessairly) about art, etc.
getting developers involved also in design takes time. It’s hard.
JanD mentioned some news/backlash about Penpot’s VC funding for their OSS Design tool. Lots of traditional OSS arguments about funding + control in OSS. Penpot’s unique feature is that it’s OSS regardless of funding. Designers also needs to be paid which was important to recognise.
FOSDEM 2023
Any speaker recommendations – please fill in this survey:
AP: Need to apply for a devroom before Oct 18th!
AP: Need to decide on 1 day and in person or hybrid - Bernard is asking questions on the matrix chat
AP: Write a post/thread about the different ways to get involved (organising in person/online, speaking, UX clinic-ing) to help people who have not done this before
Hey folks! I won’t be there today as I’m at a conf (All things Open) but would love to talk about the design workshop myself and a fellow open source design did at the conf in December!
Sorry to be missing the meeting and I hope y’all have great conversations!
Let’s talk about what the conf is like. All across a university in Brussels - chaotically open - maintain one main track - sort of a keynote and lots of community managed rooms. Managing a dev room is like managing any conf. The timing is very strict and you cannot go over or your talk will get cut from the video recording.
We’ll put together a poll/form for people interested in volunteering. Best place for updates is on the discourse forum or on these monthly calls.
Massive exhibition hall and companies will put info tables in this ‘hall’ (also kind of corridors) you can promo projects and how to get involved. We’ve had the stand for about 2-3 years. Tell people about who we are and what we do. UX clinic → 15 mins to discuss whatever design issues they want.
Request a stand is filling an online form - if accepted we do a doodle poll for 2 hr slots for minimum 2 ppl on the stand at all times. Physical stand.
Whats involved in volunteering
Ngoc asks if anyone can apply to be a volunteer → which threads to reply to?
Make Discourse post/form for people to express interest
Superbloom scientific OSS research
They’ve gotten a grant from Sloan.
How is scientific OSS think about their users? When and how do they prioritise usability & design and how do they incorporate user focussed practices?
Desk research with Science OSS projects & OSS folks. Gonna send around surveys and have conversations about this topic.
Juhans raised questions about what open principles this Superbloom project is following within this project?
Juhan’s comment: whats your stance on the output of the work. Will it be open source?
Belen asks: it would be really interesting to crowdsource the analysis process for instance
Juhan comment: so we need a 1st principles of Open Source Design research.
Eriol responds: It might end up being one of the continual outputs
Internship/fellowship
picking it back up again
spoke with penpot about “what a software company would want from a design person”
belen says:I actually think penpot might be the ideal partner for running this for the first time
Juhan: its bi-directional obligation
Juhan says:your money + PenPot’s money = makes it more real.
Bernard - OSD says: Yes.
Belen says:that sounds like a fair and neat arrangement
FOSDEM is almost upon us and we are super excited! So for this month’s Open Source Design call, FOSDEM is on the agenda. FOSDEM is run entirely by volunteers (that’s us!) and there are lots of things to do in the Open Source Design devroom for anyone who is interested. So if you want to get involved in the OSD devroom, are a speaker with some questions, or simply want to see what’s going on, feel free to drop in in the OSD monthly call on Jitsi at 19:00 CET today
) to make that graph under “Open Source Health Design Projects”? Seems to work nicely and responsive 
