“I’m really nerdy about digital sovereignty as a topic right now. This was raised at penpot festival in 2025 and it’s a huge topic...largely about what companies own and do what with our data.”
Check out the penpot ambassador community hours video recording here: https://bit.ly/penpot-ambassador-03-26
Maybe the first paper on open source software and usability:
"Usability and open-source software development", D.M. Nichols, K.Thomson and S.A.Yeates, 2001: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2331812.2331822
Discourse thread: "What are patterns of rejection of design input/contributions?": https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/4395
I was writing a bit about how designers might want to start being involved in open source projects. A part of getting involved is – potentially – also getting not-so-constructive feedback or outright rejections. I would like to hear from others how their less-than-ideal interactions went and if there are any patterns. Ideally, we could find some constructive responses, but even just collecting some experiences can be helpful!
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"Difficulties of design in open source" (discourse thread)
https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/difficulties-of-design-in-open-source/787
I’ve been taking notes for a list or presentation highlighting major and minor difficulties that designers as well as design as a whole faces when it comes to open source processes. Yesterday @devonzuegel posted on Twitter: Why are designers relatively rare contributors to open source? Which includes a lot of great replies to be added to the list. It also prompted me to open up the notes and make it a collaborative list! 🙂 So this post is a wiki, you can edit it! Click on the ‘...
“When you give user insights and feedback to FOSS - that’s an open source contribution!”
Check out this conversation with Canonical.
In this video, Open Source Designer Eriol Fox dives into the pragmatic world of design and usability within the FOSS ecosystem. We discuss how product designers and user researchers are driving long-term software sustainability through accessibility and smarter design.
This conversation covers the full spectrum of modern design development: from CLI design (Command Line Interface) and the "contributor-user" pathway, to why industry leaders are prioritizing design systems to keep their projects healthy. If you’re into Linux terminal workflows, human-computer interaction (HCI), or just building better digital commons, there's something here for you.
If you are interested in research in design in open source projects see the list of publications at
https://github.com/victoria-bondarchuk/List-of-Academic-Research-on-Usability-in-FOSS
and the literature review at https://user-project.superbloom.design/process/literature-review/
Usability issue discussions in open source projects "…were mostly focused on visual design and user interaction mechanisms". A possible explaination: "efficiency issues […] and aesthetic issues […] tend to be system characteristics that can be readily discovered and addressed by developers once a version of the system is implemented, while other usability aspects may require deeper, upfront analysis and UI/UX design."
Following on from yesterday's blog post about the new design for profiles coming in Mastodon 4.6... here is the video of @imanijoy recent talk at @fossdesign where they discuss the challenges and detailed thought that goes into the design of new features (and the redesign of existing ones). 🖌️
Imani Joy, designer at @Mastodon – A Solo Designer’s Survival Guide to the Fediverse at FOSS Backstage Design (@fossdesign)
Erioldoesdesign
Open Source Design
Sven Puschmann
Jan D
Mastodon