Peter HoddieDec 22, 2022
Scott Jenson

Technically, #FOSS is _just_ a license, but it's also a culture (with some baggage).

#UXDesign is just a set of techniques that doesn't care if you're open or closed.

It's exhausting how many #FOSS advocates lecture me on how incompatible UX is to open development or that the culture is a delicate flower and I'm doing it wrong.

Things like user studies, user testing, journey maps, or design explorations are indifferent to your culture. They are powerful tools you can embrace or hide from.

Dec 22, 2022 at 3:19pmWeb
Show threadPaul WoodleyDec 22, 2022
@scottjenson it drives me mad the idea that any potential solution has significant impact on discovery or strategic design direction stages of UX. Once you have done those early stages, covering the why and it’s THEN time to look at the solution (the how).
Show threadPeter MerholzDec 23, 2022

@scottjenson as someone who just found themselves arguing-ish with a well-meaning "it's Fediverse not Mastodon" person here, I wonder if it's how FOSS culture has been largely built by software engineers, who are of an extremely peculiar mindset.

One of rightness, righteousness, willingness to put up with technical complexity, requiring 100% accuracy even if it makes matters obtuse, and not just a lack of understanding people, but an active disinterest.

Show threadScott JensonDec 23, 2022

@peterme There are many cases where you are sadly correct. If feels like the 1980s all over.

However, FOSS is a huge space and there are folks that are looking to be better. Those are the folks I'm trying to reach.

The "FOSS is special, you're not doing it right" crowd are just sea lions and I try my best to just ignore them. There are so many FOSS projects doing brilliant UX work, we just need to shine a light on them and ask for more.

Show threadAmy QuallsDec 23, 2022
@scottjenson I'm confident the entire #UX department at #GitLab would agree with your eye-roll here, what with the company's entire development + design work taking place in the open.
Show threadScott JensonDec 23, 2022
@amyqualls I would love to talk/meet with one of them, if only to share notes.
Show threadMichael RichardsonDec 23, 2022
@scottjenson FlOSS has become just a license.
Historically, it's a different relationship between producer and consumer of the software.
FLOSS often addresses an internal need, a scratch that needs attention.
It's significant to the UX process if the users are also the designers.
I don't know who is lecturing you, or what they are saying exactly, but I tend to think that don't really understand FLOSS *or* UX.
Show threadScott JensonDec 23, 2022

@mcr314 "Participatory Design" has been around for decades and I agree it's very powerful. IMHO, this "scratch your own itch" tenant has been pushed too far, often resulting in devs with little UX experience just doing what they want.

But my point shouldn't be to whine (sorry about that) I'm just excited so many projects ARE embracing UX work and we need to speak about HOW they are doing it and why it so important to have a little less "Bazaar" and a tiny bit more "Cathedral"

Show threadMichael RichardsonDec 23, 2022

@scottjenson I don't know what open source projects you have been involved in, or how they have been funded. The whole point of open source is to allow the consumers of the system to update and modify it.

In fact, people who are solving a problem that they have, are in fact, "doing what THEY want". After all, they are the customer.
If you have some other constituency that matters, other than the user of the system, and the UX designers aren't listening to them, then who exactly are you listening to?

Otherwise, you are describing projects (web projects?) that just happen to (re-)use open source components. Do UX designers get involved in APIs for core Rust components?

Show thread➡ [email protected]Dec 24, 2022
@scottjenson I'm not super involved in FOSS culture, but I don't know of any famous open source UX designers. So maybe part of the problem is that projects don't include and elevate those voices since they tend to be run by devs. Not incompatible, but just historically not given enough weight in the process.