Elizabeth Ayer

Some hard truths for open source adoption from @bert_hubert

His #1 is also my #1:

"Whatever you’re building, you have NO margin to get away with being uglier/harder/more difficult than big tech"

and "If you don’t have people who deeply care about user-experience in your team, you’re doomed"

Open source has so many adoption barriers that only people who care a LOT will get over them. But honestly, most people don't have enough care to spare right now.

Worth a read.

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/what-the-open-world-must-do-better/

What we in the open world are messing up in trying to compete with big tech - Bert Hubert's writings

Our societies and governments now largely run on American proprietary big-tech platforms. Many of us want to decrease this dependency, or even end it altogether. This article is part of a series of posts on (European) cloud challenges. Everyone in the open tech scene is full of good intentions and we all want to improve things, but mostly we are not succeeding. By our nature, we would like to build fun, open, federated, and standards-based things.

Bert Hubert's writings
May 18, 2025 at 2:00pmWeb
Show threadRuud SteltenpoolMay 18, 2025
@elizayer @bert_hubert Know of any organisations that have a Chief Usability/Accessibility Officer?
@jaspervankuijk maybe know one/some?
Show threadDeven PhillipsMay 18, 2025
@elizayer
I have been trying to make this point in open source projects for a long time and unfortunately there are a lot of people who believe that having a difficult experience is good, because it keeps away the incompetent and annoying users... Sad.
@bert_hubert
Show threadCohenTheBlueMay 18, 2025

@elizayer @bert_hubert The simple truth is it's unlikely anyone is creating barriers of entry for all the UX people. Seems to be the case for whatever reason that UX people are not interested in working on these projects - either they think the projects aren't good enough to contribute, they don't like the other programmers or most likely just don't have the time.

I should be contributing something to some project but do not. I prioritize getting my life in order, having means to live.

Show threadToni AittoniemiMay 18, 2025
@elizayer @bert_hubert ”Strangely enough, when you visit a European initiative, you’re often immediately bombarded with those same cookies and trackers. Don’t Do It. You really don’t have to. Also, don’t start your open source project on Microsoft Azure. Want to do something with open and private communication? Don’t start with Gmail. From day one, you’re sending the wrong signal: “Even we couldn’t find anything better (locally).””
Show threadRoamin' ChemicalsMay 18, 2025
@elizayer I've been thinking about this kind of thing a lot lately, and I've come to the opposite conclusion. If it comes down to who has the "best" UX, big tech will win again and again. The only way out of this is to normalize learning and effort and to build back our collective tolerance to inconvenience. I think we need to volunteer our time to teach people how to use tools more in line with their values, not try to outcompete big tech's legions of designers, focus groups, and psychologists
Show threadtriswebMay 18, 2025

@roaminchemicals @elizayer that’s exactly why open source needs more UX firepower, not less. It’s why it’s more important, not less.

I get what you’re saying, but to me accepting that low quality and just throwing up our hands is not only sad, but also unnecessary, since it’s very possible to do better, and many projects are proving the rule on that front.

And trust me, the bar in the corporate world is very low. It isn’t insurmountable.

Show threadtriswebMay 18, 2025
@roaminchemicals @elizayer P.S. Big Tech’s approach to UX is actually a disadvantage in many ways. Focus groups, committee decisions, hotshot designers, putting business first—there is so much in the way of genuine user centered design in the corporate world, open source has a huge advantage by not having those major limitations.
Show threadRoamin' ChemicalsMay 18, 2025
@trisweb @elizayer I agree! I think our resilience to enshitification is a big advantage, and there's some extremely usable FOSS software out there (Krita, my beloved). I guess I'm frustrated with so many people betraying their values to avoid a tiny fraction of the effort that would have been commonplace a decade or two ago. We've been trained to value convenience over all else, and trying to beat big tech on those terms feels like playing their game, I guess.
Show threadtriswebMay 18, 2025

@roaminchemicals @elizayer Fair, yeah. In the great balance of factors, Open should be a very large number in the plus column. That is definitely how it works for me.

I dunno, I just think we can expect that and also go above and beyond and make the open software also the best software, and not just have it be the right choice but also the best choice; and then take over the world.

Show threadRoamin' ChemicalsMay 18, 2025
@trisweb @elizayer I hope you're right, haha
Show threadtriswebMay 18, 2025

@elizayer @bert_hubert yes! Great UX in open source is *more* important, not less, as the software has even less supporting pillars and humans.

And great open source projects like @homeassistant are proving that this works wonders for the project and its users!