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0 pointsjancsika7y ago0 comments

I'm sure there are people who are UI experts who would be willing to improve FLOSS UIs in their spare time.

The problem is that the current developer base of many FLOSS project don't understand that a) decent UI requires an expertise and b) knowing how their poor UIs are implemented doesn't count as expertise in UI development.

For example-- if I write to a FLOSS mailing list that the way they are using realloc leaves some stale pointers that can cause crashes, they very quickly fix the problem. But if a UI expert posts something about a similarly severe and easily fixed UI bug, they'll get at least 5 authoritative-sounding responses from people who know absolutely nothing about UI design.

Such a UI developer would definitely need a full-time salary to deal with that kind of social situation.

0 comments

gurkendoktor7y ago

> the current developer base of many FLOSS project don't understand that a) decent UI requires an expertise

One additional problem is that it's hard to know who to listen to. Someone who seems like a confident UI expert might as well be a misguided visionary who will turn GIMP into the next Windows 8. Randomly trusting a designer is probably just as dangerous as randomly trusting a software developer.

jancsikaOP7y ago

If problems "a" and "b" above have been addressed, this doesn't matter. Developers can simply delegate part of the decision process to some UI expert they already know and trust.

Compare

"Your UI improvement sounds interesting but it's too risky to trust a random UI expert. Sorry."

"I ran the idea by X and they mentioned that accessibility would become a problem with your approach. How do you plan to address that?"

IMO one sounds more likely to attract quality contributions than the other.

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