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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?

#161

Post by AaronChampagne »

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…

Actually, this git thing does sound cool. You mean to tell me there's an easy way of tracing different versions of a design?

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

#162

Post by [deleted] »

mkr-hn wrote: post #68
Andrex wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by eps »

pnathan wrote: post #84
josegonzalez wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 les…

Yes, I just picked up git for Windows, and it is atrociously unusable. Brutally atrocious. It's not like Windows is a popular operating system - git shouldn't support it as a first-class citizen. ;)

Care to elaborate?

I've been using the whatever default Windows port that is linked from Git's download page for several months bow and there is nothing atrocious about it. It works well and it does differ much from the Linux version. (edit) The command line version that is.

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

#164

Post by vog »

jj_aa wrote: post #152
ced wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

Kaleidoscope (OSX) has an "image scope" that at least integrates a couple tools for image comparison. http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/

In addition, Kaleidoscope seems to have integration support for some version control systems (Mercurial, Git, SVN).

Too bad it's not Free Software ...

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

#165

Post by rch »

ErrantX wrote: post #79
rue wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying…but as an open-source contributor I certainly expect that my code can be modified for various reasons. I guess a “work of art” would feel more personal, and (unless given a tight spec of elements that must be included) is more of a candidate for either rejection or admission as-is. For changes I'd certainly expect a request “can you add a wizard hat on the ninja?” rather than someone m…

Yes, but. Imagine you wrote a piece of code and then spent a couple of hours optimizing it to remove various bottlenecks etc etc. You submit the patch, it sits there for a couple of days, then a designer (bear with me) comes along, takes a look, cuts out your optimisations to "simplify the code" and applies the patch. You'd feel pretty rejected.

I just noticed a patch I submitted a year ago was accepted this week. While the patch was sitting there gathering dust in bugzilla (or whatever), I was using my version locally and enjoying the benefits.

If I had designed and submitted a nice new icon instead of code, my experience would have been roughly the same.

Bottom line is that I didn't need to have my work accepted by anyone to validate my efforts. What I needed was to have the code run 20% faster for a rare use case; mine. And thanks to the project's authors choosing to go open source, that's what I got. Then, the authors accepted my patch, further lessening my work load by saving me from re-patching future versions.

So, do designers really get what 'open' implies? Would they enjoy being able to modify the splash screen for their own Eclipse install, even if nobody else would ever see it (they can btw)? I think having a headless mode is a much better feature than anything design-related ever could be. But that's me - other people want different things, and that is kind of the idea...

Also, obviously better 'things' (code, design, whatever) will sometimes take forever for no reason at all. Like this, for instance (the couchdb-python the logo is terrible): http://code.google.com/p/couchdb-python/issues/detail?id=126

Just remember not to worry: things tend to work out OK.

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

#166

Post by AaronChampagne »

verysimple wrote: post #107
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…

Also, many (not all of them) designers don't understand the difficulties of usability, and sometimes mistakes it with "shiny". Usability of a desktop application is way more complex than a website[...] I think usability is a blend of user experience, usefulness and intuitiveness. I have a hard time associating the latter with either the programmer or the designer. My experience, as a programmer working often with des…

|Most times, when I team up with some designer they'd want to make pretty icons...

The designer should know enough to you visual symbols that have real-world equivalents to convey the meaning of the button visually. Envelopes for mail. phones for contact button. Thumbs up to like, thumbs down to dislike.

This is my first time learning about the open source project (never been on hacker news before). Can anyone provide a link to what you would call a typical open source project in need of a designer. I'm terrified of working with you guys but am starting to feel like maybe I should get over that and lend a hand.

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

#167

Post by Entlin »

It's all down to different cultures. Open Source projects, the way they currently are, are driven by coders - version control, bugtrackers, IRC etc - all geeky things.

Designers work in different environments: personal discussions, meetings, illustrator, photoshop, other web communities (like dribble and obscure sections at flickr).

If you ask a designer to add stuff to your repository, you're asking him to adapt to your way. Most designers aren't going to learn git.

To embrace designers means that you include them in your processes and tools. And let them in on strategic discussions - that's where good design is most often lacking in OSS.

If you continue with a Codeocracy where only check-ins are valued and the guy with 100k lines of written code is king, you're not going to convince many designers to help you with their free time.

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

#168

Post by ThomPete »

vog wrote: post #164
jj_aa wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kaleidoscope (OSX) has an "image scope" that at least integrates a couple tools for image comparison. http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/

In addition, Kaleidoscope seems to have integration support for some version control systems (Mercurial, Git, SVN). Too bad it's not Free Software ...

I don't think image comparison is the problem here. The problem is that designers works in rather different flows. To us a file can be many different states at once.

Kind of like a developer would have 10KLOC but be commenting the 8K of them in and out all the time.

In other words the document have many states at once depending on what you make visible or not.

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

#169

Post by endergen »

I believe it's because open source projects are designed to be modular. Design on the other hand is holistic. So it's hard to integrate design into an existing project unless it's an open source project such as a CRM where basically designers can make nice skins of the entire project.

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

#170

Post by AaronChampagne »

lovskogen wrote: post #78
tibbon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with your final point. As programmers, you can point to your Github repo as your resume. In the design industry, they don't care about your Github repo (or will even understand it), and they'll bug you about some part of the program that you didn't even contribute to or were responsible for.

Depends who you want to work with. 37signals keeps on emphasizing that they'll look up possible new hires. Having a repo on Github is all positive.

I've just heard about 37 signals this past month or two and am thinking about putting out a portfolio for them. Would they actually care about OS projects as a designer?
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