Where are the open source designers? copywriters? information architects? interface designers?
July, 29th 2010Open source software is in need of your attention. You know that groan you emit when you want to try something that’s free, that sounds like it fixes your problem, but then you load it up and look at it. You know that laugh you give when you see such a terrible UI that it has to have been “designed by a developer.” That’s a problem.
You know what else is a problem? The design and writing communities withholding their expertise and skill from an open source project. Look, I get it, it’s not easy to break into a bunch of developers and say “Hey I’d like to improve the interface.” The relationship between a designer and a developer can be euphoric, but in general it can be a back-and-forth struggle. Plus, we’re not always the most open-minded crowd.
The Ruby community has design on its mind. Everything is a little better, a little more legible in the Ruby community. This is most likely because Rails, the project that kick started the language to 11, was released by a programmer who worked at a design company. Take a look at RubyGems. That’s a fine looking site: simple, elegant, concise. You know what you’re doing and how to use it.
I believe it’s partially the developer’s fault as well. Maybe, in this 20 years of engineering championing, we pushed too hard on the designer or the writer. It’s like at colleges where the liberal arts don’t hold as much weight as a bachelor of sciences. That sort of thinking has persisted through careers. Perhaps we’ve backed all of you into a corner and you’re pissed at us because Google has 47 blues tested. I get it.
However, the Python community really needs your help. Look at what happens when you load PyPi, the Python index. It’s awful. Is it meant to terrorize new developers? I’m not sure, but if you’re learning on a great learning language like Python, this crap, while clean, murders you with information overload. Information Architects: Why not donate some time to getting this layout right and helpful for newbies. Don’t even look at PECL it will burn your eyes. PHP desperately needs your help.
Plus, it could use some selling? Copywriters, where ye be? Probably curled up on your hemp-woven couch with James Joyce. Just so you know the books progression is circular. OK, that was a cruel stereotype. Without great writing, our apps all just automatons.
Where do we developers suck? Honestly, where do we suck at keeping you folks on board after or if you volunteer? Open source is generally maintained by committee and most all projects have a point man. I can understand not wanting to design-by-committee but you can agree to work for for the point man. Not only will this improve the quality of the project you’re working on but it will help it grow and in turn the community.
Developers give out lots of free stuff, you use it, I know you do! Why did WordPress have to hire a design company to help with their backend interface? Why doesn’t WordPress have a design team? I know lots of writers and designers who use WordPress. Where did we go wrong? Why are you afraid to design and write for us?
The Django admin panel has CSS and styles in it. You can design a better one. It could use some IA from an expert. Plus, think of what a significantly rewarding challenge it is to design for the abstract.
There are tons of README.txts that need a copywriter’s touch.
There is also a business case. Developers in open-source communities get a lot of work requests because, you know, they build it. If you can find a great open source project and begin working on it, chances are you’re going to make some connections. So when a client approaches the developer for some work, and design is involved, you may be the only designer that dev knows. It’s just networking by the work that you do.
So, why aren’t you all contributing? What did we do wrong?
Our work as developers benefits tremendously from your work. Please help.
Comments
I’d help. But I have no idea where to start. I haven’t seen—maybe because I haven’t looked hard enough—open source software projects actively seeking UI developers or designers.
I wasn’t on a hemp-woven couch, but I was reading James Joyce this week.
Posted at 03:43 PM on July 29, 2010
Good Q, Meyers. I don’t think it’s developer’s fault—I think time is a very important part of the equation. That, and the fact that I haven’t seen many callouts for volunteer / opensource copywriters and designers.
I think most pros and eager young’ns would donate their time to viable-seeming things they really believe in, and which they can fit it into their lives without tearing their hairs out.
(Though personally, I do find it hard to peel myself out from under my flaxseed snuggie…. It’s so… comfortable…..)
:D
Posted at 04:13 PM on July 29, 2010
WordPress has a charismatic lead in Matt Mullenweg - http://ma.tt/ - who clearly understands the value of good design. I would love to donate some time to a cool open source project, but it’s been my experience (and observation) that designers are a bit of an afterthought.
Hopefully, the work that Canonical are putting into the Ubuntu visual refresh will inspire many other projects to do the same.
Posted at 04:58 PM on July 29, 2010
@jody There are many open source projects, some very popular. I think the frameworks communities are an excellent place to start. CodeIgniter could use some help.
@Ticjobro It’s interesting you mention time because on average, based on my experience, the amount of time it takes to develop something is normally significantly higher then most other pieces of a project. Granted this is for a standard site.
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One of the issues coming up here is interesting in that you expect to be called, but that’s not how Open source works and that’s not what devs do. They find something they like and they volunteer. It’s rare that an open source project will ask for contributors if it’s large enough. In fact, many developers can just jump in.
http://guides.rails.info/contribute.html
Start with the big guns.
Posted at 05:19 PM on July 29, 2010
As a front end developer / designer I generally find that its not always designers that are needed but its visually aware front end developers. Let me explain why: I work a lot with Drupal and there are some really nice open source themes for its administration pannel (granted the UX project is making further leaps and bounds (albeit whilst meeting heavy resistance)) but what it fails to do is produce clean semantic markup (especially in the case of panels).
We need to build on a good foundation. Get the developers focusing on producing semantic code and then get designers or visually aware font end developers to apply simple design principles on top of the good semantic underpinnings.
- @Prydie
Posted at 01:08 AM on July 30, 2010
“One of the issues coming up here is interesting in that you expect to be called, but that’s not how Open source works and that’s not what devs do.”
That’s pretty much the crux of it. Developers want designers to come over to their world and volunteer alongside them. On the developers terms.
There doesn’t seem to be much incentive for a designer to do this. Plus many of us are very cautious about entering into situations where design is managed by consensus.
If these concerned aren’t well-founded then much of the open source community has an image problem it needs to address in order to attract people other than developers.
Posted at 02:50 AM on July 30, 2010
@Ed What can happen to change this? Does a designer need to be a part of an open source project from day one? The expectation is that someone will come to you and ask for your help?
Do you use open source software? Are you not benefitting from it?
Posted at 02:56 AM on July 30, 2010
@Kenny Explain to Designers what they have to gain from working on Open Source projects. No one really does this, maybe because like me they have doubts that there are many.
I use some open source software (Firefox, Webkit and there’s plenty of bits and pieces inside OS X) but like many designers there’s not the possibility to contribute to many of the tools I use myself.
Posted at 05:46 AM on July 30, 2010
The main misconception is that developers decide to make the whole application and then expect designers to come along and “prettify” it with gradients and rounded corners.
That’s not what design is and that’s not how real designers expect to work.
Design precedes development, not the other way around.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
—Steve Jobs, 2003
Posted at 05:54 AM on July 30, 2010
The “design by consensus” point is a good one, something that it appears Mark Boulton’s been struggling with in his work with Drupal:
http://twitter.com/markboulton/status/19661091843
Procedural code has the benefit of being logical and measurable. When you’ve got an open source project with dozens of developers contributing code, their contributions can be fairly easily tested, measured, and held up against established design patterns. You can ask questions like, “Does it work?”, “Does it make our software more secure?”, “Does it make our software more efficient or flexible?” And you can benchmark it.
Design is a different sort of beast. It requires a strong unifying vision, a consistently-applied set of values. You can’t just have 10 or 20 people hacking on a design willy-nilly. That’s madness. And it’s not as easily measured. There aren’t simple benchmarks. Sure, you could do user testing, but how many open source projects have those kinds of resources? With design, “better”, “more efficient”, and “more flexible” are erratically-moving targets.
So the qualitative difference between visual/interface design and programming is part of the issue. But as Ed suggests, this is also usually a pretty big blind spot for open source software. For example, some of the problems mentioned above could be mitigated by having clearly-defined guidelines. Most projects have coding style guides and other documentation freely available for programmers looking to contribute. How many have visual style guides? How many tell their extension developers or other contributors how to handle interface elements?
And how many make it clear to designers how and where they could contribute? Programmers know, for the most part, that they can grab a project’s codebase and make some improvements and have those changes accepted. They normally start with small patches and build up to higher-level changes and improvements. Is the path to meaningful contribution as clear for an information architect or a user experience expert? How many open source projects actively try to engage designers in a structured, meaningful way?
I work for Symphony, an open source CMS, and we’ve not been immune to these problems ourselves. One of the steps we’re taking is to create small working groups focused on various elements of the software, and not only the core code but also UI/UX, documentation, etc. One of these groups’ primary charges is to develop the sort of guidelines I mentioned above, and to actively solicit and manage community contribution. They’ll also debate various topics and problems, and recommended solutions, out in the open.
The hope is that by providing a set of transparent, structured mechanisms, we’ll lower the barriers of entry for people who want to be involved with the project—designers and copywriters included. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it works ;)
Posted at 06:24 AM on July 30, 2010
It’s a simple answer: Us designers do not benefit from helping. If you look at where designers and developers both benefit, the design is much better. The CMS. ExpressionEngine & WordPress have some beautiful design going on.
I do benefit from PHP everyday, but not directly. I do not benefit from the PHP community, I’m not on the boards. As a designer I kind of care less to a certain point how my site is programmed as long as it works. Ruby, PHP, .NET… most of us don’t give a damn. Just as most developers wouldn’t care if I used Photoshop or Fireworks.
I also think there is a general flow of things that goes opposite of designers helping developers. From my experience the client usually hires a designer/marketing first and we designers look for programmers to help us out with the shit we cant do. In my 14 years of designing for the web, I can only remember a couple of times where a developer has come to me for design, but the times I have hired a programmer is uncountable.
I think designers who want to build something HAVE to use a programmer to help us with projects just so they work at the base level. Programmers do not need designers to have an application work. It’ll most likely look and work like shit, but programmers see Google and Craigslist and think of design as an afterthought.
There’s one huge glaring sign that a project will suck for me as a designer. That is when I am pulled into a project already started by a developer and I am pulled into to decorate it. I assume the same is for a programmer when a designer has made every decision as to how his web app is going to work and you are brought in as a code monkey. This is what’s going on with these communities. I’m not really interested in decorating a community site I am not even active in. I’m not even interesting decorating any site for that matter. I want to be apart of the decisions and work with the content and solve issues.
Posted at 06:25 AM on July 30, 2010
Though there are perfectly valid points in this article, I think it really misses the heart of the matter.
Design is—as much as people don’t like to admit it—fundamentally different than writing code.
The problem isn’t so much that designers aren’t willing to do the work, it’s that open source projects aren’t setup to make designers a part of the workflow.
It’s one thing for a programmers to grab a bundle of code, grok around a bit for the particular bit they’re interested in and start hacking. Once the code is written/debugged, they commit it and the process starts all over again.
Design. Doesn’t. Work. Like. That.
As @Lewis pointed out, design should precede development. I’d extend that to say that good design should be a *part* of the development process as well. Until the open source community figures out how to integrate design into project workflow from the outset, good design is going to continue to elude the majority of otherwise fine projects.
Posted at 09:03 AM on July 30, 2010
Open source copywriter. Interested in offering this service…
I am a writer and editor. I digest complex information (think worm in compost) and deliver it in manageable chunks.
If I can understand something, then other non-technical people can too.
Posted at 01:06 AM on July 31, 2010
In my experience, most developers get into an open source project because they plan to use that software in some of their own (personal, client, or employer) work. The time they put in directly benefits them—though maybe down the road. I’m not sure most designers have a clear path between a contribution to an open source project and a benefit for them later on.
Posted at 03:10 AM on August 01, 2010
I’m glad you brought this up. It never occurred to me that an open source project would want writers to volunteer. I almost got involved in one project but if I’d written anything I would have been paid in that case and, at any rate, plans changed and I wasn’t involved in the end.
I devote a bunch of spare time to A List Apart. Put that in the category of open source education. ;)
But if someone had an open source project that needs help, and they are great people to work with, sure, I’d love to contribute.
You pointed out many obstacles that may prevent writers from becoming involved. A few more:
1.) Since most writers don’t hang out there (in forums, for example), it doesn’t occur to them that they’d be wanted. Also, approaching someone and saying, “May I improve this writing?’ could be interpreted as insulting to *some* people, so there’s a tendency to wait for an invite. Open source projects can be cherished by a sort of tribe, and you don’t want to seem like an interloper who comes in telling everyone what needs to be drastically changed. As a writer, you’re unlikely to spend time getting to know everyone in a forum for something you never use.
2.) Developers will directly benefit from open source projects because they’ll use the product, whereas, aside from the more polished, easier-to-use CMS (the ones usually improved by paid writers, btw), writers often won’t.
Although I’ll design an occasional site, if I rewrote the content for most open source stuff out there, I might never use the software or language again.
3.) Big Learning Curve: to improve the writing, you have to know the product. In fact, to do the job right, you may need to know the product better than many people who will use it. You need to know it well enough to make it not only clear but written concisely. That’s a lot of work, and a lot of tracking down of people who will be happy to explain and explain and explain. This can be daunting for many writers.
4.) Will the payoff be worth the investment of time if you probably will never use the software? (And, many of us are already contributing “spare” time, as I said, to general education projects or creative projects.) There’s also the issue of fairness. If a developer goes on to make a lot of money using the open source thing and the invisible copywriter makes none, it stings, whether people are willing to admit that or not. You mention CodeIgniter…my guess is that the people of Ellis Labs (who are great) make a living from the other things they produce. The designer was paid to design the pages. Would it be fair for the writer to then come in, invest a lot of time, and then not be paid?
5.) As a writer and strategist, IA and user experience design often come into play, at least the way I approach projects. To write well, I will be asking questions such as who are the people I’m writing for? I’ll be addressing which information is most important for each group: beginners, intermediates, and advanced users— whether talking about the site or the software instructions, etc.—and need to determine where and in what order that information should go. How much freedom will I have? Will my name be put on the project and then it’s all changed by people who think they can write…and can’t? Will it become write-by-committee?
You’re right, though, it would be an incentive IF, indeed, our names were bandied about enough that we got jobs from contributing. But, I’m much more likely to be brought into a project by a client, a designer, or some other person than by a developer. So, considering what I’d need to learn, that’s a lot of work with no promise that anyone would ever even know I was involved, let alone hire me. A developer can advertise herself as a Python developer and be hunted down by people needing Python work. If I worked on that project, I can’t very well advertise myself as a “Python writer.” ;)
Open source or not, there have been countless times when I’ve seen a technical site (or book) and wanted to improve the writing, make it more understandable, inviting, complete, approachable, and did I say understandable? :) There’d be a huge payoff for me if I knew I’d be working with great people, too. There’s a site out there, can’t think of the name now, where designers and developers hook up to do special little projects. There’s no place on it for writers to join in. I remember looking at it longingly a few times.
Posted at 02:32 PM on August 01, 2010
We are ready and would be happy to contribute on open source design, usability, interface design.
Posted at 10:58 AM on August 02, 2010
Thank you all sincerely for your interesting and kind words.
I’m a little concerned about the designer/developer rift. It’s still a bit odd and haunting that it exists. I think this will fade with time as everyone becomes more specialized or a hybrid.
I’m very excited about all the copywriters. I’ll have a follow-up article to this with resources sometime this week.
Thanks,
Kenny
Posted at 10:14 PM on August 02, 2010
Hey Kenny, thanks for writing this. Lots of great bits in your article and the comments.
I like how Jim Renaud says:
“I’m not even interesting decorating any site for that matter. I want to be apart of the decisions and work with the content and solve issues”
Neither do I want to come in at the “decoration level.” If you want a designer to contribute to the look-and-feel, then you need to bring them in at one level deeper first. Like Jim suggests, bring us in to solve some problems, and then maybe we’ll be more apt to re-skinning the visual design.
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Wow, Carolyn Wood has some really great points, too!
Regarding #2, benefiting from using the product: I’m a UX guy, visual designer, and front-end engineer. I could definitely see myself benefitting from helping an open source project. But I don’t really know anyone who could give me an introduction or encourage me to help out an open source project. Except maybe you (Kenny). Kudos to you for calling this out. I had no idea it was such a problem.
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I love ExpressionEngine, which is built on Code Igniter. Do you think CI could use my help? At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be any “Help needed” signs or sections that say “how to get started donating time to CI”... so maybe that’s an easy first step? Get a single page up that says “we need writers and designers.” Unless they don’t? Honestly, I’m done working with Drupal and WordPress, never liked designing for them, and never really identified with the crowd of designers and developers who do.
Since it’s not easy for designers and writers to get involved, developers should work on lowering that barrier. You’ve done a great job of calling that out here. Thank you! Designers and writers could probably be working on giving developers more attention. One of the reasons I have this blog on my radar is because I’m a fan of anything Happy Cog believes in. Maybe another way to break down this barrier is to get more studios like Happy Cog to encourage interaction between designers and developers.
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Wow, that was fun to think about. I’m actually looking forward to hunting down some Code Igniter developers and offering to help out. We’ll see how that goes.
Posted at 08:11 PM on August 05, 2010
Legitimate authors have nothing to gain and pretty much everything to lose from making their original creative works open-source. Literature, for example, is not computer programming.
People like you are a problem. You have the nerd’s sensibility that anything that works in the computer realm has to work somewhere else; alternately stated, computers run on programming and computers can display literature and art, so why can’t literature and art be more like programming? Because you’re dealing with two types of creators, not one type.
Posted at 11:06 AM on August 21, 2010
@Joe,
My perspective was around the business of open source software. Notice I didn’t say authors but copywriters. Essentially looking for people to help make these projects look and act more human and less nerdy, helping with better documentation, clearer instruction and better pitches. I tried to provide a benefit-case of meeting people who may contract expertise, but clearly that didn’t hold weight (as many commenters pointed out). Which is absolutely understandable.
Now I’m curious. Why did you call me a problem? That’s not a very nice thing to say. What compelled you to write that? Was it my stereotype of the writer? Why were you so offended?
Posted at 11:48 AM on August 21, 2010
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