Openness practices

[Erioldoesdesign]

For most of the designers, the process that OSS used was open enough when it came to transparency in the design aspects, and some made other efforts to be open with their design, and their work in general.

Participants share assets and resources with their community and other stakeholders in an effort to be more open. Sharing these assets is also limited by the processes of the organization they work within, as one participant mentioned that they “cannot submit any (design work to us as the research team) before the design has been approved”.

One participant “invited new contributors to oss design to participate in the project” and another “joined another (geolocation) community … about free culture and communications in general” indicating that they interact with the community they are part of as well as new OSS communities in an effort towards being more open.

One participant mentioned migrating to an open source tool to be more open, and they also reported having issues with the previous, not OSS design tool. “I’m on the way! Using Penpot and not Figma, maybe?” “Penpot can not navigate between pages yet”.

A not often spoken about aspect of openness is around how openly users can access the OSS. One designer mentioned that, through their design work, the users were able to ‘discover’ this open tool to use with their families. “I'm not sure if this counts, but for the first time, most parents in my region were finding out about this free (and open source) learning tool for their kids.”

The motivations for being open seem to follow some general themes. Participants who share their assets and resources do so for easier collaboration with stakeholders, as one participant was “Trying to re-organize my Figma design for better handoff”, presumably referring to a developer handoff and another “created a speaker's kit for all speakers with design assets and slide templates”. These assets were reported to be received positively by whomever they were shared with. “I heard back from someone I shared open design resources with that it was helpful and that they will be using our contributions”.

The risks inherent with not being open with your design were evidenced in one interaction where “[a] Collaborating designer took the wrong design file and got an outdated asset in his work. So it needs to be retracted and redone.”

Another motivation for sharing assets was to have more involvement from the community, as one participant “shared the doc with the team at (OSS community organization) for other designers to make inputs”. Growing and strengthening the community itself was also a motivation, whether it was by interacting with other members of the community, or by giving credit where due “Apart from my design contributions, I also had conversations with other open source designers and project owners on the future of design in OSS for 2023.”

However, growing a community is no trivial feat. One designer spoke of their efforts to ‘open up’ their processes and ask for more designer involvement. It appeared not to work “I am stuck with the same amount of pressure as usual. I'm hoping to take a less stressful but more profitable action this year by speaking with the larger open source design community”. This demonstrates the effort exchange needed by designers to either focus on openness or continue through the work solo. Both take effort and designers (like other functions in OSS) are time-limited, and they must make careful and risky choices with choosing to open up more.