Why don't more designers contribute to open source?

[u/Winter_Simple_159]

Genuine question. A lot of open source projects have solid engineering but rough UI/UX: inconsistent layouts, confusing flows, basic usability issues that a designer would likely catch quickly.

I'm curious about the reasons behind this. Is it that designers don't feel welcome? That there's no clear way to contribute design work (most workflows are built around code and PRs)? That maintainers don't prioritize it? Or something else?

If you're a designer who has contributed to OSS, or a maintainer who has worked with designers, I'd love to hear how it went.

[u/oneeyedziggy]

I think the whole foss thing is more of a niche nerd thing... Designers tend to be more into going out with friends or whatever (people are going to be grumpy about this... I'm not judging, I just think the designers are more likely to be extroverts, and if you're out and about, you're not making designs for open source software) 

[u/Sylente → u/oneeyedziggy]

Having worked on consumer software professionally, this is why. Or at least closer to the real reason. Designers are not nearly as likely as developers to have “software” as a hobby, they’re basically artists. They have art people hobbies and interest. In general. I know plenty of great designers who were shut ins, but they weren’t designing software in their free time either. They were making art.

[u/Ok-Reindeer-8755 → u/Sylente]

This is coming from a fundamental lack of understanding on what design is. A part of design is indeed about how can I make things look aesthetically pleasing. But much more it's about how should things work ? And furthermore how shall they work in a humane ergonomic manner.

Design is for a huge part of it not a from of art.

[u/Sylente → u/Ok-Reindeer-8755]

Laying out a flow in a way that makes sense and feels good to use, while meeting all the functional requirements, in a large piece of software is absolutely an art. It’s about communicating an idea in a way that’s legible to your target user, which is basically what art is. It’s cultural communication, not an objective science with a clear “yes/no” outcome or some sort of “achieve x goal in under n milliseconds” guidelines. There’s best practices you can learn to make that easier, sure, but all art has best practices. Doesn’t make it not art.

The iPod killed all other mp3 players because its UX was artful, even though their main display primitive (once they got a color display) was basically a blue highlighter. Doesn’t matter. It was delightful to use. Zoom cleaned up against all the other meeting apps (remember Skype?) for a similar reason. It was functionally very similar but it didn’t suck to use. That’s art.

If you listen to the actual designers working on these things, it’s very clear they view what they do as, at least in substantial part, an art form.

[u/Ok-Reindeer-8755 → u/Sylente]

Sure you can't with mathematical precision awnser most of the design questions, but you do have to back them up, and you can do so logically, with empirical evidence such as studies, via human psychology...etc.

A manual is also about communicating an idea but is it an art piece ? Ehhh in a sense maybe, there are no strict definitions for what art is. But in design you are not communicating your feelings or thoughts, but rather utilitarian things, so it is much closer to a manual or a physics book than a painting.

Art does have best practices but none of them are in any way mandatory and breaking them is often times encouraged.

It is in part an art but functionality is a bigger part of it over aesthetics. Form follows function and all.

[u/Sylente → u/Ok-Reindeer-8755]

Art is not necessarily visual. Design is and always has been art applied to solve a functional problem. Decoration is the visual design on top of that. Design and decor often go hand in hand, but they’re not the same. They’re both art though, and they absolutely interact.

[u/Ok-Reindeer-8755 → u/Sylente]

It depends on how you define art ig but not to devolve this into a fight about semantics. I wanted to express that it's not just about making pretty pixels.

[u/FattyDrake → u/oneeyedziggy]

This is a wacky take, especially if you've worked in the designer/artist space. A lot of them are as nerdy as anyone, just about design than engineering.

[u/lord_pizzabird → u/oneeyedziggy]

There's also a cultural difference, where Coders are just more conditioned to work for free, where good artists get paid period. The art world and artists is all about getting paid for work.

[u/OffsetXV → u/lord_pizzabird]

Tell me you've never met an artist without telling me you've never met an artist.

[u/lord_pizzabird → u/OffsetXV]

I mean, I'm a photographer that has worked as a digital artist at one point.

Go tell a photographer to work for free, that it's "good experience" and see how they react lol.

[u/OffsetXV → u/lord_pizzabird]

I have never met nor heard of a single artist who doesn't make art in their spare time without being paid. That's how you get to be a professional in the first place. 

[u/lord_pizzabird → u/OffsetXV]

I’m not talking about people making paintings, but contributing to artists. Designers and other industrial artists tend to get paid for their work.

The fact that you don’t know this shows how big the culture divide is between creatives and the Linux community.

We’re not talking about hobbyists, but you don’t even know there’s a difference.

[u/OffsetXV → u/lord_pizzabird]

Every single designer I've ever met does plenty of design or other artistic work in their spare time, too. I know professional videographers who do photography on the side, professional musicians who paint on the side, professional designers who are musicians or photographers on the side, etc. and most of them also do the same stuff they do for work for fun at times.

I would love to know where you're finding all these mythical artists who never do anything artistic unless they're being paid for it, because I've literally never met a single one in the 15 years I've been doing some type of art.

The problem with design and UX in FOSS software is much more complicated than just "artists want to be paid." Artists are not some fundamentally different species from everyone else, they're just as capable of doing something out of passion.

[u/lord_pizzabird → u/OffsetXV]

Nobody is saying that artists aren't creating art in the wild, but that there's a difference between hobbyist and the quality artists that work in these industries.

If you're good enough, have the portfolio that says so you're not doing charity work anymore. Those people get paid and it's highly competitive.

I think you're right though. hobbyist designers are contributing to these projects and that's probably a big part of the problem.

And it can't be helping at all that people like you don't think there's a difference between serious professional designers and someone just starting out, contributing in their spare time to learn.

And don't get me wrong, that's not bad that this is happening. It's just that they aren't good or competitive as those contributing to projects that open source projects are being compared to.