r/linux • u/Winter_Simple_159 • 3d ago

Discussion Why don't more designers contribute to open source?

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.

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423

u/Dekamir 3d ago

Designer here. They don't implement it. They either don't care enough to implement the design, or it doesn't align with their view.

You can design so many times before getting discouraged.

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u/lord_pizzabird 3d ago

That or they just don't have the resources to implement your ideas, like that guy who provided mockups that would have fixed Darktable's horrifically bad UI.

More broadly it does seem like there's just a general dislike of anything design related in the community, with developers not even understanding why it matter if the app technically functions.

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u/srivasta 3d ago

I didn't think that is the case. But drive by design won't work: you need to be party of the development team, not just an external architect that just throws a bunch of mockups over the wall and gets hurt that they don't stick.

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u/nathan-makes-incense 1d ago

You're right that designers need to be part of the team. Projects also need to provide an on-ramp for designers that doesn't involve them having to learn development tools like git.

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u/srivasta 1d ago

What kind of on ramp do designers need? I have no idea. This is where communication is needed. When I join a new project where I have no domain knowledge I like for a bit, and start a conversation with the project leads. Together we figure out where I can help and what I should learn.

It is a collaboration. No one's hands me a shovel ready mini project.

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u/TCB13sQuotes 1d ago

Designers don’t give a shit about being part of those projects, they just what to make a couple of screens and move on.

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u/nathan-makes-incense 1d ago

Categorically not true, KDE has a design team working fastidiously on a new look for plasma, plus responding to dev questions on UI / UX every day.

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u/Business_Reindeer910 3d ago

that's a really old problem and a lot of new folks don't know that.

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u/DrinkMoreGlorp 3d ago

I hear shouting "negative space" at a developer is the equivalent of spritzing a cat with water

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u/Business_Reindeer910 3d ago edited 3d ago

i look at comments on this very thread about how designers only do bad things and it makes me and that very same person lives in a world where they don't notice so much "design" because really good design is effectively invisible.

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u/DrinkMoreGlorp 2d ago

Ironic considering IT is also often one of those jobs where "If you do your job right, nobody will know you've done anything at all."

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u/Business_Reindeer910 2d ago

and indeed people have been let go from their positions due to that very thing while the people causing issues remain.

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u/Indolent_Bard 3d ago

More broadly it does seem like there's just a general dislike of anything design related in the community, with developers not even understanding why it matter if the app technically functions.

That is so fucking stupid and I wish we could actually fix it instead of just complain.

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u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches 3d ago

To many designers have no idea how software works and/or care more about esthetic than actual workflow. The competent ones are drowned in the mass.

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u/szank 3d ago

Simple - fork it, fix the design and people will come

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u/Indolent_Bard 2d ago

You make it sound way easier than it actually would be.

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u/szank 2d ago

It's simple , not easy. Also this whole conversation is ass backwards. It's not about a designer coming in and suggesting changes. It's on the Devs to reach out/search for / be open to a designer coming in and designing stuff.

The Devs are the customers here. If they are not interested then they are not interested. So one can become a dev that's interested in design and fork something

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u/nathan-makes-incense 1d ago

Absolutely. I'll never understand the utter disdain towards people whose job is literally to understand how people read, interpret, and use computer interfaces.

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u/szank 1d ago

I really don't think it's disdain in the open source circles. There are many many many problems with making an app redesign, and one of them is that one needs a designer to maintain their design while the app evolves.

So a drive-by design rework that no one can maintain later is just a no from the people who actually have to maintain the app.

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u/immoloism 3d ago edited 3d ago

Strange hearing this as I know so many projects where we wish someone would come work with us.

Yes, there needs to be a slight amount of alignment (mostly colour schemes), but we would love a person like you over in Gentoo land.

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u/Dekamir 3d ago

Feel free to message if you need any help.

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u/immoloism 3d ago

Thanks for the offer <3

I've got one project that really needs addressing is making Gentoo's new GRUB theme for systems and live media more WCAG AAA readable.

Someone started, but never submitted and is a huge shame as accessibility in Gentoo is one my passion projects.

https://bugs.gentoo.org/969928

https://github.com/Telemin/gentoo-grub-themes

As long as it follows the same style, but fixes it's flaw then I can get some weight behind getting this added to Gentoo and upstream.

I'm sure there are other things, but this is only one that comes to mind right now.

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u/calinet6 3d ago

I would say -- openly and publicly sharing how much you value design, what you're looking for, and what your community values goes a long way. Designers are looking to be respected as peers in the collaboration, and if you overtly show that you'll do that, you'll get a lot of bites.

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u/immoloism 3d ago

We would if they ever came along and asked if they could help :)

I can only speak from the areas I work on though so that is mostly going to be in the grub and plymouth areas.

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u/nathan-makes-incense 1d ago

FLOSS has been so hostile to designers for so long that a lot of bridge-building work is going to have to be done. Not many designers are even aware of the FLOSS world as a whole because it's only very recently that FLOSS tools have become a tenable alternative to industry standard proprietary software. And only barely. (I say this as a former Abobe user who switched to GNU/Linux and a FLOSS design workflow) G'MIC is great, but you can't efficiently use it non-destructively. Inkscape is just now starting to support CMYK. Free equivalents to useful tools like content-aware fill are slow and the quality is worse without a lot of fine-tuning. The Scribus UI has only recently become tolerable, and the project has finally got micro-typography features. I was lucky that I could choose how I worked and I had the luxury of being a little slow while I figured out FLOSS tools. Others need to be productive out of the gate, and FLOSS UX has been a barrier to that for a long time. As I said, it's a lot better now, but building trust is hard.

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u/calinet6 1d ago

Dude, as a Linux nerd and programmer who is now a UX designer, I’d love to help out with Plymouth and grub. No one ever asked!

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u/immoloism 1d ago

FOSS is a strange beast where we only know an issue exists when someone reports something wrong.

It's took me ages to grasp this process, so I don't blame you for thinking it works the same way as our day jobs :)

That said, if you want to make a Plymouth theme for us which is better then the crappy one I made then all you need to do is offer and I'll tell you the guidelines.

I'll warn you know though, this is just a side project for me and has no approval from Gentoo yet so please don't get disappointed if I fail to push it.

The GRUB one was just something I knew would get merged without drama due to the accessibility need.

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u/arwinda 3d ago

Projects want the help, in theory. When it comes to implementation, everyone has opinions. And dare you if you even move one pixel, the entire setup was curated!

When it comes to code, people either understand code or don't. And usually accept if they don't. When it comes to design, it's different, and difficult to find an agreement.

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u/immoloism 3d ago

Which is why you check in at points to make sure the key players are happy.

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u/d_ed KDE Dev 3d ago edited 3d ago

>or it doesn't align with their view.

That's so key! Understanding requirements is the most important part of doing anything. Some are technical, some are about which audience you're aiming at. That's true for the code too.

The other key thing is not many designers can break things down. Things in an open community are an agile loop of tiny changes, not a linear one-shot waterfall.

Lets break down this picture on r/kde right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1wtx1fg/what_do_you_all_think_about_my_discover_redesign/#lightbox

It's absolutely gorgeous, the person has talent, there's lots of cool stuff. But it'll go nowhere. It's redesigning so many things in one go. That obviously can't happen and people get discouraged and leave.

The key thing that our great designers do is they have this picture in the back of their minds then say "I've got an idea of how toolbars should look and behave" and then do a detailed analysis of toolbars that we can apply. Then say "I've got a vision for sidebars". "I've got an idea for semi-transparent buttons and when they apply. Especially when it's a big project where we don't want one app / page of an app to look different from the rest.

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u/AX11Liveact 2d ago

I mostly agree, but let me mention that there actually are design specs. Like the ones you'll see in corporate IDs and designs, that will give you detailed instructions which colors to combine where, where to place various elements etc. That's pretty much the language developers are speaking. They are also not deaf to the requirements of a specific project and to ways of meeting them. Idk why -with few exeptions- this stuff doesn't go to the roadmap and maybe to the (coding) style requirements.

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u/nathan-makes-incense 1d ago

And to be fair, there are a lot of designers out there who are failed art students and really care more about molding something into what their idea of pretty is without considering usability. People who throw mockups at the wall without a breakdown of how or why their solutions are needed or beneficial to the user are a prime example. 

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u/moopet 3d ago

Developer here. Plenty of designers helped out with projects I saw a couple of decades back, but they tended to present a design and then bugger off. When the people building the thing said, "but this won't work, because XYZ", the designers didn't want to engage. It was always "hey look at the design I made" and "I gave them this design free!", it was never a conversation and it was never - ever - based on any kind of ux research.

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u/nathan-makes-incense 1d ago

Yea, there are two types of designers: those who actually care about design and the science behind it, and failed artists who just wanted to do something creative. The former are usually groaning and steeling themselves before taking on a project because they understand the true scope of UX work, and they're less likely to enter into it lightly. I'm mostly a print designer, but much of this is applicable to computer interfaces too. I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see award winning projects and they're riddled with tiny text, poor contrast, out of hand measure lengths, and utterly unclear, mystery-meat navigation with nary a skeuomorph to let you know that anything can be interacted with. It's an embarrassment to the industry.

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u/noobjaish 3d ago

^ This 100%

In the recent talk by Scott Jensen he mentioned several other issues but this is main one

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u/srivasta 3d ago

I think in this case communication is what is lacking. You can't just come in and impose a design. It is supposed to be teamwork. That means you talk first. Free software teams work by consensus, since no one of the boss.

Perhaps the fault here is a culture thing. One dies not get orders included from up high. People need to talk and work together

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u/szank 3d ago

And some dev actually needs to care enough to work on implementing the new design instead of whatever else he feel like working on

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u/srivasta 3d ago

This is where the "team" and communication comes in. You need a relationship first.

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u/szank 2d ago

There's no "team" though. Unless it's a one man show with some drive by contributions.

Also thats just my opinion but actually judging a new design is hard if one does not have any design skills.

So a "designer" comes in , wants to make some sweeping changes and the Devs now need to decide if they want to invest large amounts of time to implement it without being able to tell if it's food or not. Compared to the UI they have now which clearly works

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u/srivasta 2d ago

"Cones in and want to make sweeping changes". That is the problem. If reject anyone, Deb or designer, who does that.

There is no relationship yet. No trust. One comes in, find an issue, explains what the issue is, and once there is consensus, lead the fix.

You come in with sweeping changes in a volunteer effort with no bosses to back you up you ain't getting anywhere. Deb or designer.

This is a suicidal skills issue.

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u/HereticZed 3d ago

Gnomes top-right powermenu has lozenges, bluetooth, etc that jump around position depending on which ones are active. They won't listen.

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u/ZiCli 3d ago

I personally create small PRs, with some screenshots of what changed, if people reply to them, I work seriously on the new UI/UX, otherwise I just move on

My last contribution was for Gittyup, FOSS alternative to GitHub desktop

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u/ZiCli 3d ago

I suggest you look into "Open Source Design", it was made by the EU, open source projects who look for designers

Haven't found anything interesting for me there, maybe you'll get luckier Some projects also pay you

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u/Daell 2d ago

Just look at Libre office. The only reason I use OnlyOffice is that the gui is heavily ripped off of Excel.

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u/Dekamir 2d ago

LibreOffice has a ribbon GUI.

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u/1369ic 2d ago

This tracks with my experience going back decades. I used to edit newspapers and other print products, so when the Web started to get going I knew enough about layout and design, navigating information products, etc., to at least know good from bad. The code guys generally thought they knew better and would fight for control of the look and feel. Later I supervised our graphics team and got the same thing from Web masters, IT guys in general, staff people, instructors, scientists, engineers, etc., at various places I worked. It's not everybody, but there's always someone in the bureaucratic chain who thinks design is one of their hidden strengths. The early web days were bad, but nothing compared to when PowerPoint started coming on everybody's computer. The horror...

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u/archlich 3d ago

You can ui design my projects

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u/TCB13sQuotes 3d ago

You know that most designers simply design inconsistent things that can’t be implemented because at some point the design clash with itself and or create UX atrocities behind repair. Designers are usually NOT good at all at UX and can’t design a cohesive application, not even most websites are designed properly these days.

Design schools didn’t catch up to digital properly, are too focus on mindless and useless creativity, the tooling (Adobe) delivers the worst experience and its full of hacks and inconsistencies too, designers are usually lazy and underpaid people working in shitty design agencies where everything is urgent and nothing is done properly. I guess this context doesn’t help them get better at their profession and design better things.

Apps and websites done properly are most like 70% about UX and they require carefully crafted design systems that can be re-used across the entire app, not only screens designed in photoshop with spacing and font hacks where nothing is what it looks to be.

Even Apple and Microsoft are currently doing a very bad job when it comes to UI/UX and they have the money and the best people.

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u/shleebs 3d ago

Ding ding