Size matters: Why some projects can't do UX well
summary
Claim: project size shapes how UX gets done, and mid‑size repos routinely fail for three concrete reasons: maintainers default to “scratch your own itch” so UX work dies without a shared plan; modern code complexity makes simple PR fixes (75% of UX requests are icon tweaks) impractical; and hiring a UX person often delivers huge, discardable work or churn. Concrete fixes: adopt a plan with UX goals, provide someone across the red line to onboard designers, and break work into small celebrated bricks — examples include upstream help for Bonfire, Flatpak, and a thorny Mastodon icon change.
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chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction to UX in FOSS
- 1:30Bridging the gap for UX
- 4:20Design by PR vs team sports
- 8:52Does project size matter?
- 10:01Overcoming implementation barriers
- 21:13Practical steps to get started
- 22:48Q&A and closing thoughts
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