I would like to help an open-source project with UI design and UX design. I have over 18 years of experience in the field and have worked with desktop and mobile software on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Windows Mobile/Windows Phone. Unfortunately my knowledge of Linux is very limited but I’m eager to learn. Could you help me find a project? @thelinuxEXP @linux @macrumors @windowscentral @windows
Have a look at KDE , it is a super welcoming community.
This. KDE community seems to be very friendly and Plasma could really need a little polishing. Especially the default Breeze theme.
@coolmojo thanks, I’ll check it out!
I think that one of the projects that needs it the most right now, a complete overhaul, is FreeCAD.
It needs a good, competent UX designer. Nothing has changed UX wise for like 6 years. Everyone who begins to use it quits saying that it is the biggest hurdle.
It is literally the only real classical FOSS CAD software and they have no UX designer as far as I know.
@JustEnoughDucks thanks for pointing that project out, my husband is a heavy CAD user so he could help test it too. I’ll look into it, see how I could help.
You have my vote for freecad
Everyone who begins to use it quits saying that it is the biggest hurdle.
It’s really not. The main problem with FreeCAD is the topological naming problem (available in a fork) and the lack of assembly support in the core (available as add on). Those make it a pain to build anything more complex and they make refactoring a nightmare. Following that you also have the problem that the geometry code is not very capable and the software will just refuse to perform some actions that would results in multiple bodies.
That’s not to say that the GUI isn’t in need of polish. Back in 0.19 it had obvious issues like conflicting keyboard shortcuts between modes and without a tutorial you might have a very hard time finding the window that even allows you to build stuff. So there is plenty of room for improvement, but one shouldn’t be under the illusion that there is some professional CAD solution hiding under a bad UI. It’s would still be a very basic CAD tool even with a highly polished UI.
But as they say, every journey starts with a first step. It’s certainly a project that has plenty of UI issues and could benefit from improvements.
I don’t think that FreeCad will have it UX/UI design resolved for good as the software relies heavily on workbenches developed by third parties.
Subjective take: there’s worse than FreeCAD - sure it’s a bit “old school” but it’s bearable. O. The other hand, the solver has crashed on me so many times… The workbench way of doing things requires some time to get usdmed to, sure, but a crashing solver is far worse.
Oh I get that. I have been making a flight stick with a bunch of curves. There is a ton of problems with solving and the utilities still, especially TNP, midpoint creation, subtractive pipe solving, and QoL things.
However, there are already devs working on it and now a private company devoting resources to it recently. What they still don’t have is a UX designer, purely from a resource standpoint.
The solver can definitely be done in parallel. A UX designer can not necessarily just as easily just as well work on multithreaded FEM solver debugging, curved surface resolution, etc… it is a different resource.
There’s a nice little project called Lemmy, have you heard about it?
@gary_host_laptop I am reading up on it right now! Are you part of it?
You posted to it lmao, by @ ing linux@lemmy.ml. Fediverse!
They could be using kbin instead of lemmy
They posted from Mastodon
They’re using a Mastodon account and the post they made is on the Lemmy.ml instance.
You actually posted to a Lemmy instance from your Mastodon one fwiw.
@Piers Yeah, I did not know what Lemmy was, thought It was some random instance. Very much a newb at FOSS. *Embarrassed*
Yeah no problem. It gets confusing because Lemmy, Kbin, Mastodon and the other big one I currently forget the name of are all their own set of software that people use to make their own instances with that can all talk to each other across the different instances and platforms but also, many of the big instances use the name of the software they use as part of their own name. ie mastodon.cloud (which is how you are presumably accessing this conversation) is a Mastodon instance (or whatever term is used for the Mastodon equivalent of a lemmy instance) but it is not Mastodon itself, just one example of Mastodon in action. Similarly in Lemmy-land you have major instances called beehaw.org (a Lemmy instance that my account is on and through which I am interacting with this post), lemmy.ml (which is the instance this post is actually on and is the oldest Lemmy instance run by the people who started the FOSS Lemmy project) and lemmy.world (the biggest Lemmy instance.) All three of those instances are run by entirely different people for different purposes and they all intercommunicate (to some degree, I think maybe beehaw.org currently is defederated from lemmy.world due to the challenges of moderating users from a large open instance in line with beehaw’s goals), they are all Lemmy instances but none of them are actually the Lemmy FOSS itself. However, people often think that either lemmy.ml or lemmy.world is exactly synonymous with Lemmy or that beehaw.org is a seperate thing.
Really imo all the Fediverse stuff should have set a standard that would require consistent clear naming across all instances (IE, perhaps they could all be required to have an actual name independent of the name of the underlying technology and then also include what they actually are, ie beehaw-lemmy.org, beehaw-mastodon.org etc) but we’re well past that point now I think.
Potentially yes
It certainly does pose an issue from that perspective but I’m not sure any more than websites in general. It’s not actually that hard to rip off a website’s design and so it’s quite common to see phishing scams of that nature. In some sense it’s less likely to happen with people impersonating a Lemmy instance simply because actually setting up and running one is more work than impersonating just a regular website.
Yes, someone could create an instance called “officiallemmyinstancedotcom” and pretend to be the one single official lemmy to try to trap people searching for Lemmy not entirely knowing what it is, but I don’t think the fact that people already think places like lemmy.ml or lemmy.world are synonymous with Lemmy is a prerequisite for someone doing that. If anything, people who mistakenly think one of those two is the only “real” Lemmy are probably less likely to be taken in by a malicious one.
Still…
Providing clearer on site messaging to help avoid this sort of confusion sounds like something a good UX designer could perhaps assist the Lemmy FOSS project with?
I’m also a UI/UX designer who’d love to help out! 🥸
These are really Linux, but these Android projects need some UX assistance if you’re at all familiar with Material Design.
https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
https://github.com/dessalines/jerboa
I’m pretty familiar with Material. Wondering how (specifically) I can help. I’ve used and followed some open source projects but I’ve never contributed.
This advice is pretty universal. First things first, install the app and get familiar with. Then write down all the ways you believe that the app could improve. Then break the list down further to figure out what are the goals and how they’re obtainable. Check those new list items against the Material You guidelines. After that, your list should be smaller, items that can be grouped together, should be. Figure out if you need to make a mockup to help illustrate your advice. And then create issues on the project GitHub, the more the better. Afterwards, shoot the developer a private message or email and explain that you’re a UX designer and you’re hoping that you can contribute in a meaningful ongoing manner.
Solid advice, thanks. I think I’d best be able to help out on react (maybe native) or web apps, or the iOS space since I don’t have a daily driver android device (but if I did I’d jerboa looks fun) but I can help with UX on any platform
There’s a few lemmy open source iOS clients, I suggest finding the one you like the most. There’s some listed here, just scroll down to the iOS section: https://lemdro.id/post/4319
This is actively looking for UI help https://github.com/thetwom/toc2/discussions/74
This is a great project as well that could use some guidance on UI https://github.com/nightscout/AndroidAPS
ah perfect, and yes material design was the foundation of my education as a designer! thanks for sharing
Glad I could help.
This is actively looking for material design UI help https://github.com/thetwom/toc2/discussions/74
Same. We should form a collective lol. (I have some dev experience also)
Not sure if it helps but https://lemmy.tf/comment/1086993
The biggest problem you will run into isn’t your skills but the willingness of the people who run various projects to even entertain or accept your ideas or input at all, regardless of your credentials or anything else. You could have the best, most logical UI design for an app and they often won’t even entertain the thought of it what-so-ever. This goes double if you lack the ability to actually code it yourself using whatever frameworks and things the project itself uses.
I’ve worked extensively with various open source projects over the last 30 or so years and that’s always the biggest barrier of them all.
I think hard data can help with convincing, doing various UX studies and A/B tests.
@fernandolins @thelinuxEXP @linux @macrumors @windowscentral @windows please lend a hand to https://yarn.social. This is their flagship instance: https://twtxt.net/. Their main developer is legally blind, and truly could use help with UI/UX.
huh whats this
Owncast, the foss twitch alternative, is an incredible project and they’ve been looking for design help for quite some time… https://owncast.online/
@lps That’s very cool, I didn’t know about that one. Thank you for the suggestion.
This is a cool project!
This is a very cool project! Appreciate you bringing this to my attention.
@jackpot Thank you very much for the list, I’ll investigate them
Third one there is actively looking for UI help https://github.com/thetwom/toc2/discussions/74
first one here literally just came out, second one seems okay and is very popular, third desperately needs it, fourth is ancient
Come help BOINC. BOINC is a software used by scientific researchers to distribute large computational workloads to the computers of volunteers. It is used by projects researching cancer drugs and mapping the galaxy just to name a few things. It works well and has been around over a decade, but is rough around the edges. Your work could have a HUGE impact. The main client and server are in C++, there is also an Android client written in whatever Android apps are written in. There are even some bug bounties which you could get paid for if you fix.
If you have any questions, drop by the discord. Thanks!
@makeasnek That sounds really interesting, I’ll read up on it. I don’t know any C, C++ or Java/Flutter/Android stuff, all I can help with is providing mockups, high fidelity specs and prototypes for the screens. I am working on learning how to use more dev tools.
Gotcha. I don’t think they have the dev time right now to implement what might come from mockups, even through a new UX has been on the list of needs for a while now. As much as it would be cool to have a new UX vision to rally around, I just don’t think much could be done with it. I would want your time you’re volunteering to go somewhere useful of course :).
If you are interested in learning C++ though, there’s a number of low hanging fruit issues that might be good things to tackle once you get past the hello world stage.
@makeasnek I understand, I’ll do my best to learn the things that are necessary to actually help. I see that it is possible to make skins for the BOINC Manager app, seems like a good way to get acquainted with the features and GUI. Is there a C/C++ UI framework or IDE that you believe I should learn first?
That’s a great question and more than I know about C++ development. I do know that skins exist, that may be an easy way to implement a new UX without actually having to write a bunch of C++ code. The person to talk to about development, if you’re interested, is Vitalii you can find him on the discord or on their Github (AenBleidd)
Take a loot at https://opensourcedesign.net It’s made for people like you
im confused, whats the website about
It’s a project to improve the design of open source apps. So it provides resources, connects designers (like OP) with engineers/projects, spreads awareness etc.
@morrowind Thanks!
The programming language Go has only few UI building options. One of the few that does not rely on a browser running underneath is fyne. I like its programming model a lot, but as you likely see in the example screenshots: something is off. I can’t put my finger on it. I assume it’s a mix of different subtle visual cues, spacing, etc.
So if you are willing to work on a UI framework (with bonus points if you are interested in doing a bit of Go programming), I think contributions to fyne would be very cool (so far the maintainer(s) were open to suggestions and input, so I also assume designer input is welcome :-)).
@aksdb thanks for the suggestions! I’ll investigate them
Improve the home page of Lemmy… I think the buttons on top take too much screen space
There are already a lot of great suggestions posted already. I thought I would toss in https://mauikit.org/ which is working in making a convergent UI for desktop and apps.
@Sarcasmo220 I’m a little worried if I should take your advice since your username is Sarcasmo ;) Thanks I’ll look into it
how does that work
I’m not sure what you mean. The project is developing a framework to help make the UI convergent.
You could help us at Organic Maps. We are in need of UI designers. Contact me or biodranik on Matrix if you are interested: @g_mate8:matrix.org and @biodranik:matrix.org
Organic Maps is so nice, thank you for all your hard work 🥰.
