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Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

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Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#61

Post by jianshen »

vog wrote: post #28
Sirupsen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, version control definitely seems like one of the biggest gaps. The communication between developers and designers have to improve, and the developers will have to realize they can't ask every designer for commits, but they can probably ask them for .zip files.

On the other hand, maybe we should make designers want to use Git. This might be not as crazy as it sounds, as I recently learned: A few weeks ago, there was a short presentation about Git, targeted at non-programmers such as graphics and web designers. After the presentation, one of the designers (who apparently already knew about Git) stood up and criticized the presenter for not going deeper into branches and auto…

Source control is also not part of a designer's natural workflow because the options aren't that great (usually backups on a NAS is all there is and a few proprietary snapshot plugins from Adobe. Kaleidoscope looks the most interesting). Also, svn branch numbers or git hashes don't make nearly as much sense to designers as "HiFi Mockup iPhone4 Right Aligned Inbox.ai" when they want to backtrack or compare current "in the running" designs.

I'd love to see the OSS community develop better source control software targeted towards designers. :)

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#62

Post by allenbina »

replicatorblog wrote: post #13

1. Ask for help - I'm a designer that reads HN everyday and I wouldn't know where to look if I wanted to participate in an open source project. Is there a list? The problem is most OS software aside from GIMP/Inkscape doesn't make its way in front of designers often. 2. Make it discrete - What needs to be designed? The entire UI and workflows? The application icon? The internal navigation glyphs? Redesigning an entir…

brilliant answer. Moreover, there is no GIT for designers made from the ground up (I'm envisioning a gui for past drafts).

Also, there are no standards for schools of design. There is no professional course that teaches the basics of ergonomics for the web the same way architectural web development can be taught. Most of the people like myself just follow a few major blogs.

I know many designers who would love to donate to open source projects.

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#63

Post by josegonzalez »

random42 wrote: post #55
vog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, maybe we should make designers want to use Git. This might be not as crazy as it sounds, as I recently learned: A few weeks ago, there was a short presentation about Git, targeted at non-programmers such as graphics and web designers. After the presentation, one of the designers (who apparently already knew about Git) stood up and criticized the presenter for not going deeper into branches and auto…

> On the other hand, maybe we should make designers want to use Git. I use Git, and its a wonderful piece of software craft indeed, but it does not have Windows/Mac clients, that designers often use, as their base OS. A decent usable frontend for Git, on platforms other than Linux too, needs to be developed, for it to be usable by designers. Edit - I meant to say officially supported frontend and support for other os…

You're quite wrong.

GitX is available at https://github.com/brotherbard/gitx/downloads (Get the experimental branch)

Git Tower is available at http://www.git-tower.com/

Textmate has a GIT Bundle at https://github.com/jcf/git-tmbundle (It's quite good, but maybe not for designers).

And Giggle (http://live.gnome.org/giggle).

Windows is the only OS lacking a good client, but I use GitX for Mac every day, as do the less technical "devs" at our Startup.

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#64

Post by [deleted] »

rchowe wrote: post #54
vog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, maybe we should make designers want to use Git. This might be not as crazy as it sounds, as I recently learned: A few weeks ago, there was a short presentation about Git, targeted at non-programmers such as graphics and web designers. After the presentation, one of the designers (who apparently already knew about Git) stood up and criticized the presenter for not going deeper into branches and auto…

What Git really needs is a few tools like Versions and Cornerstone were for SVN: simple apps that didn't require any command line use at all. Git Tower might be there, but I haven't used it so I can't say that 100%.

[deleted]

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#65

Post by ced »

vog wrote: post #28
Sirupsen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, version control definitely seems like one of the biggest gaps. The communication between developers and designers have to improve, and the developers will have to realize they can't ask every designer for commits, but they can probably ask them for .zip files.

On the other hand, maybe we should make designers want to use Git. This might be not as crazy as it sounds, as I recently learned: A few weeks ago, there was a short presentation about Git, targeted at non-programmers such as graphics and web designers. After the presentation, one of the designers (who apparently already knew about Git) stood up and criticized the presenter for not going deeper into branches and auto…

"diff" between graphics files is neither readable nor meaningful, and where automatic merges are impossible anyway.

Both problems seem "hard but solvable" to me. Isn't there software doing that already?

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#67

Post by jasonkester »

Charuru wrote: post #10
wccrawford wrote: post #3

Pay them. Don't -ever- expect anyone to contribute for free. When they do, treat them special instead of taking them for granted. That seems like common sense, but that's what I see all the time when it comes to programming projects, open source or not.

Sounds unfair, developers don't get paid, why do designers do.

Not unfair at all. The vast majority of developers get paid for their time. It's only in Open Source that you see people volunteering their time with no hope of monetary reward. Even within that tiny minority, most of them are doing it for some form of compensation, even if it's just to get their name attached to something and build a reputation.

If you're developing software for somebody else, they're not paying you, and you're not getting any benefit whatsoever, that's entirely your fault. It's certainly not unfair though.

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#68

Post by mkr-hn »

Andrex wrote: post #46
replicatorblog wrote: post #13

1. Ask for help - I'm a designer that reads HN everyday and I wouldn't know where to look if I wanted to participate in an open source project. Is there a list? The problem is most OS software aside from GIMP/Inkscape doesn't make its way in front of designers often. 2. Make it discrete - What needs to be designed? The entire UI and workflows? The application icon? The internal navigation glyphs? Redesigning an entir…

Funny you mention GIMP, that's one OSS program that needs a UI refresh badly.

They've had something going since at least February '07 (going by the refresh wiki edit history), but I don't see any sign that it's produced a tangible product.

Lots of pretty mockups though.

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#69

Post by mitjak »

jbk wrote: post #53

I really wish I knew how to get great designers... VLC is a product, that is widely used, usable (not the mac version, though), but it is extremely ugly. It is quite hard to get designers to help us (redesigning all the buttons for example) for quite many reasons. The biggest reason is that we don't speak the same language. Many designers don't understand the criticism that usually comes around with each modification…

This brings up the same recurring theme: lack of understanding or correct communication between the "art" and "science" departments. I am not an expert on the matter but two things I've noticed about a working designer-programmer workflow are:

* "Glue" team members. The company I've worked for always had at least two staff members who were a bit of both, and could basically plan out and convey ideas from one team to the other. * Assumption of expertise. Each group would trust the other when it comes to both design and programming and no doubting would take place. In case of a conflict, a programmer could tell the designer why a certain design would not work out well citing particular technological reasons; similarly, given a question by the programmer, a designer would explain why a particular design is laid out the way it is, why the buttons are blue etc. Given the conflict resolution scheme, a product builds up based on mutual trust and communication of ideas between the two parties.

Re: Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?

#70

Post by wolfgke »

rimantas wrote: post #57

There is a problem: for a meaningful contribution designers must be involved from the very beginning (hence "designer" not "decorator").

Then the rational choice for designers would be to contribute to open source projects that are in a very early state.

But as far as I know, they don't do so. So we have a contradiction.

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