belenbarrospena/design_blackhole

The UX design blackhole

Our presentation about why human-centred designers should contribute to free and open source software.

Slides are available at https://belenbarrospena.github.io/design_blackhole

Script

Hi everyone. My name is Belen. I am a designer and a researcher. I was asked to come today and talk to you about something. Yes: something. That's pretty much all the instructions I got. So I've spent the last week racking my brains thinking of what I could talk to you about that is 1) not too boring, 2) useful to you, but also, 3) useful to technology at large, because the opportunity to adress the UX designers of the future doesn't come every day.

And after a looooot of thinking, I decided to talk to you about this. Who knows what this is? It is a black hole. To be more precise: it is the user experience design black hole that still exists in the software galaxy.

Let's talk about the software galaxy. Like in Star Trek, we can split this galaxy into sectors. There is a retail software sector. Here you have the social media platforms, the e-commerce websites, digital banking, online self-service and so on. In this sector, software engages its users mostly as customers. That's why we often hear them talking about 'customer experience'.

There is also an enterprise software sector. Here you have sales and customer relationship management applications, accounting software, project management and HR stuff, that sort of thing. This software engages its users mostly as workers and professionals.

The third sector is the government digital services one. Stuff by the NHS, or HMRC. The web forms that we use to renew our driving license or request a new passport. Here, software engages with users as citizens.

But there is one more sector. One that very few UX designers have dared to visit so far. It is the FOSS sector.

FOSS is an acronym. It stands for free and open source software. Who has heard of this thing? Would you be able to explain it?

The reason why we need to use this FOSS acronym is that, in theory, free software and open source software are different things. But for the purposes of today, we are more interested in how they are similar than on how they are different. And, as it turns out, there are plenty of similarities between them. This is the definition of free software. And this is the definition of Open Source software. As you can see: they are very, very similar. Both are software whose source code is available for anybody to see, use, modify and redistribute. This means that, instead of just having access to the machine-readable code - the ones and zeros - we can look at the human-readable version of that code. And we can not just look at it: we can use it, change it, and share it with others.

Now that you know what FOSS is, let me ask you a question. Please stand up if you use FOSS. Mmmmmm, all those people still sitting down: are you sure? Sit down, please, and let me ask you a different question: please stand up if you use the web. Well, I have news for you: if you use the web, you are using FOSS. Because every single web browser out there is based on FOSS: Chrome is built on top of the Chromium project, which is FOSS. Safari, Mail and the App Store are built on top of Webkit, which is also FOSS. And, if you happen to use Firefox, well, Firefox is a FOSS browser based on a FOSS project called Gecko. And it’s not just your browsers. The vast majority of web servers out there run either Apache or Nginx: both FOSS projects. And those web servers run on an operating system called Linux, which is also a FOSS project. Every single one of us uses FOSS every single day. That’s how important FOSS is. Computing as we know it exists because, and is made possible by, free and open source software.

A lot of people believe that all FOSS projects are very technical projects: things like web browser engines, cryptography libraries, web servers or tools for developers. The pipes, nuts and bolts of computing. That is actually not true: there are thousands upon thousands of FOSS projects, in all domains. Desktop publishing, finance, science, mathematics, assistive technology, artificial intelligence, communications, video, education, healthcare, theology … you name it! Whatever you can think of, there is FOSS project for that.

And there are plenty of FOSS projects making tools for designers. There is a raster image editor called Gimp; a vector image editor called Inkscape; a 3D design program called Blender; a wireframing and prototyping tool called Penpot; and an animation tool called OpenToonz. And all these FOSS design tools are professional-grade tools, as good as, and sometimes patently better, than their closed source, and very expensive, commercial equivalents. OpenToonz in fact is the tool that Studio Ghibli uses to make their animated movies.

One of the remarkable things about FOSS is how it’s made. FOSS is not made by a team of people employed by a single company, as commercial software is. FOSS is made by individuals who volunteer their time and skills. Those volunteers are most of the time distributed across different companies, and spread all over the world. And they are not just software developers. In order to make and maintain software, writing code is only one of the many skills needed. And so you have volunteers who write code, but you also have volunteers who test that code to make sure it works; you have writers who produce documentation; you have translators who localise the software; you have community managers; you have event organisers; you have marketing people; you have graphic designers; and you have users, who put the software through its paces, file bugs and request new features.

There is one group of people, however, who are usually involved in making commercial software, who have remained spectacularly absent from Free and Open Source software. Can you guess who they are? Yep: UX designers. They are nowhere to be seen. Why this is so, we do not know, but as a group we are leaving a phenomenal gap. FOSS is a gianormous UX design black hole. UX design has progressively expanded from retail software, into enterprise and then government, but they have never made the jump to free and open source software.

As a result, the quality of our FOSS software is worse than it should be; FOSS software does not reach all the people who could benefit from it; and as a community, UX designers are missing the opportunity to influence and impact extraordinarily important software.

The FOSS community is ready to receive UX designers, and is eager to do so. But we, UX designers, must reach out to them. It is very important that we make our expertise available, and that we start to contribute to FOSS.

You must be wondering: well, how? How do you get involved with a FOSS project? How do you volunteer your time? How do you make a contribution? Here come some tips on how to get started.

1. Find a project you are passionate about. There are thousands upon thousands of FOSS projects, touching almost any subject. What is it that matters to you? What would you like to improve? Are you interested in health informatics? Education? Tools for design? Privacy and security? News and journalism? Video production? Gaming? Science? Whatever it is, there will be one or more FOSS projects already in the space. And if you are unsure about what to choose, and would like some inspiration, visit the Open Source Design jobs board at http://opensourcedesign.net/jobs. FOSS projects who want design help often post requests there.

2. Get to know the software: whatever it is you want to contribute to, install it and start using it. Explore it, play with it, and get familiar with its features and its design.

3. Study the community developing and maintaining the software. There are a few things you should search for in this process. Their source code repositories, where they store and publish their code. Their issue tracker, where they file bugs and requests for new features. Their documentation, their conferences if they have any, and their communication channels. Many FOSS projects do not use Slack: they use IRC or Matrix instead. They are also likely to have a forum, one or more mailing lists, a wiki, one or more blogs and they may have a regular phone or video call. Join all those. Observe for a while: find out who is who and who does what. Introduce yourself: tell them who you are, what you do, and why you are interested in the project.

4. Consider attending the FOSS conferences, particularly the ones where designers hang out. The Libre Graphics Meeting (https://libregraphicsmeeting.org), and FOSDEM (https://www.fosdem.org).

5. Find out how design work is currently done and structured in your chosen project. Some FOSS projects already will have designers involved or will use certain design tools. You must be willing and ready to learn and adopt those tools. And yes, I'm afraid those tools very often include Git and its graphical user interfaces GitHub and GitLab. Some designers out there get very upset and angry whenever they hear the word Git. Don't be like that: Git is just another tool, and a pretty good one by the way. Learning it will save you a ton of time, and it may even help your design work.

6. Before you start designing, consider making a smaller contribution. Open a bug if you have discovered that something is not working as it should; or fix a typo in the documentation. FOSS communities appreciate those contributions very much. Some communities will also signpost the design issues that are good for new joiners. Like the Nextcloud project, for example: they use the labels 'design' and 'good first issue' in the issue tracker. You can filter issues by those labels to find suitable first contributions for designers.

7. If the project you have chosen doesn't do that kind of thing, just ask if there is anything they would like you to work on. It may not be your first choice, or it may not be very interesting, but it will signal the community that you are willing to help. It will show them them that you respect their criteria and priorities, even if you don’t fully agree with them.

8. And be patient. Compared to the agile, two-week sprints world of commercial software, FOSS is the "slow food" of the software world. FOSS can take its time because projects are there for the long-run and they are not under pressure to make money. To us designers, there are many benefits in this slow pace. You can take time to research your users and get to know the community; and you can take time to iterate your designs.

At this point you may be thinking: oh, but I am still studying my MSc. How can I contribute to FOSS? Quite easily: consider choosing a FOSS project as the subject of your assignments. FOSS projects tend to be sympathetic to academic endeavours, and they are likely to help you. Work with them to choose a piece of work that is interesting to you, appropriate for your assignment, and useful to the project.

Finally, if you join the FOSS world, you will need to be ready to explain why user experience design is important, and what are the benefits of adopting its principles and methods. In many FOSS projects design is still understood as graphic design. It is likely that the community you join will know very little about user experience, and probably they have never done any research with their users. So take it slow, and aim for baby steps.

And with this, you are ready to jump in!

User experience design has ignored FOSS and its activists for far too long. Activists, yes: this is how FOSS engages with its users. As activits. Free and open software aims to democratise technology and empower those who use it. In that sense, their goals should be very close to our professional hearts. We should acknowledge the importance of free and open source software, and contribute as we can. Filling the UX design black hole is up to you.