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
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 🥰.
Do you have much experience with deployment? I’ve got a small hobby project with a GUI written in Qt, and I’ve been having a hard time writing reproducible build scripts for cross-platform deployment.
On macOS, I can distribute the executable with homebrew and add Qt as a dependency. On Linux, I could theoretically build an AppImage, but I would prefer to have the build process handled by GitHub Actions, which doesn’t have sufficient resources to statically build Qt. On Windows, I’m at a total loss…
My project is tiny, but it does have a niche market, and I’d love to make it available to as many people as possible. Qt is killing me!!!
Sorry, I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the design side of things. I’m just throwing darts, cause I’ve had a hard time on my own with this.
@vhstape Hey VHS, unfortunately I don’t have any experience with the technical side of development and deployment of software, I only know how it works at a high level. Unfortunately I have seen a lot of projects suffering with QT in the last few years so I hope you can move your project to another UI framework or find a solution to your problem.
Thanks for the reply. What framework would you recommend for C/C++, preferably cross-platform?
@vhstape I’ve heard good things about NITISA and JUCE, although I have no personal experience developing with them, I only created icons and GUI graphics for companies using them (mostly for VST audio plug-ins)
@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
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.
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)
Librera Reader. It’s a very functional ebook reader with lots of features, but the UI/UX seems like it got stuck in the early 2010s of Android interfaces.
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.
how does that work
I’m not sure what you mean. The project is developing a framework to help make the UI convergent.
@Sarcasmo220 I’m a little worried if I should take your advice since your username is Sarcasmo ;) Thanks I’ll look into it
Owncast, the foss twitch alternative, is an incredible project and they’ve been looking for design help for quite some time… https://owncast.online/
This is a very cool project! Appreciate you bringing this to my attention.
@lps That’s very cool, I didn’t know about that one. Thank you for the suggestion.
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 Retroarch blue GUI is terrible.
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!
If you are looking for something impactful , libretexts (A platform for open source text books) , and alovoa (website for dating and meeting friends) seems good
@wiki_me thanks for the suggestions, I’ll read up on them!
Both are some random niche projects, calling them impactful is a bit of a stretch
Same. We should form a collective lol. (I have some dev experience also)
Not sure if it helps but https://lemmy.tf/comment/1086993
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
This is actively looking for material design UI help https://github.com/thetwom/toc2/discussions/74
Glad I could help.
This is a great project as well that could use some guidance on UI https://github.com/nightscout/AndroidAPS
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
