Speaker
Description
Open source thrives on contributions from developers, testers, and community builders, but design often gets left behind. With far fewer dedicated designers in FOSS than in the commercial tech world, usability issues go unaddressed, and end users feel the friction.
The good news: you don’t need a design degree or a new job title to make a difference. In this talk, I’ll briefly share my journey from Engineer to UX designer (now at Canonical), and show how any contributor can use simple, practical design methods to identify and solve UX issues in their favorite open source projects. I’ll try to break down “design” into simple steps anyone can try, noticing where people get stuck, asking the right questions, sketching ideas on paper, and trying them out with friends or community members. No special skills or software needed: just curiosity and a willingness to make things easier for others. Using examples, I’ll walk through how small UX fixes can have a huge impact on adoption and satisfaction.
If you’ve ever thought, “I see the problem, but I’m not a designer” - this talk will give you the mindset and tools to step up and become one.