

Sustain Open Source Design
Richard Littauer
S.O.S. Design is a podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of open source and design: how design is crucial in the open source ecosystem, how designers work with coders to make open source software better, and what sustainability means for the field of open source designers. This podcast grew out of the Sustain community (https://sustainoss.org) and Open Source Design (https://opensourcedesign.net/), and seeks to share great conversations with members from both communities and the open source and design space at large.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Nov 23, 2021 • 39min
Episode 13: Oleg Nenashev and designing at Jenkins
Guest
Oleg Nenashev
Panelists
Memo Esparza | Eriol Fox | Perrie Ojemeh
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Today, we have as our guest Oleg Nenashev, who is a Jenkins maintainer where he writes code, mentors contributors, and organizes community events. We find out more about Jenkins and what Oleg does for them. He fills us in on a portal that Jenkins created for onboarding new contributors, he shares advice on where designers can contribute but don’t know where to start, and we hear some challenges that Oleg faced as a maintainer, as well as his approach to face these challenges. Go ahead and download this episode to find out more!
[00:01:11] Oleg tells us about himself, his current work with Jenkins, and more about the company.
[00:05:36] We learn what kind of design things Oleg does in hardware design.
[00:09:00] Oleg talks about his connection to designers in open source with all different kinds of backgrounds and he mentions other things he has done as far as research and mentoring students.
[00:10:39] Oleg does research for Jenkins and Memo wonders how he approaches that kind of user research for Jenkins users.
[00:14:52] Jenkins created a special portal for onboarding new contributors that we learn more about.
[00:17:54] Since there are a lot of designers that want to contribute but don’t know quite how to start, Oleg tells us there are two parts, to help potential contributors and the potential work items to find each other and mentoring people to achieve this.
[00:22:00] Oleg provides us with some numbers from Jenkins with how many installations and users across the world they have.
[00:24:05] When it comes to Jenkins projects being built, designed, and maintained by groups of people making different improvements, Eriol wonders how Oleg handles these challenges.
[00:27:12] We find out that Jenkins is interested in all kinds of contributions and Oleg explains the process. Also, he shares some advice to the UX or UI designers and graphic designers who want to get into this kind of work, what they can do to get in.
[00:31:57] Oleg tells us challenges he faced as a maintainer and his approach to face these challenges.
Quotes
[00:09:00] “When we talk about open source communities, basically every kind of role is welcome.”
[00:09:08] “Because the open source community is huge and whatever background you have, whatever interest you have, you can find something to do there.”
[00:13:36] “We started doing inverse meetups, one that we basically organized and a user panel when we invite one or two users or user companies to present their story about Jenkins.”
[00:32:22] “You need to have community leadership, and you need to have a community leadership onboarding process, which allows you to grow and scale as a community.”
Spotlight
[00:35:03] Memo’s spotlight is open source typefaces to experiment with on Open Foundry.
[00:35:41] Eriol’s spotlights are two HOTosm design repositories, design-strategy and HOT Design System.
[00:36:49] Perrie’s spotlight is the CHAOSS Project.
[00:37:29] Oleg’s spotlights are Apache Maven & Community and FOSDEM.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Richard Littauer Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Perrie Ojemeh Twitter
Memo Esparza Twitter
Oleg Nenashev Twitter
Oleg Nenashev Linkedin
Oleg Nenashev Website
Oleg Nenashev GitHub
Jenkins
Jenkins Art and Design
Jenkins User Experience SIG
Open Foundry
HOT Design System-GitHub
HOT design-strategy-GitHub
CHAOSS
Apache Maven
FOSDEM 2022
Credits
Produced by [Richard Littauer] (https://www.burntfen.com/)
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at [Peachtree Sound] (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr [Peachtree Sound] (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Oleg Nenashev.

Nov 16, 2021 • 38min
Episode 12: Abhishek Sharma on collaborating with NGOs as a designer
Guest
Abhishek Sharma
Panelists
Eriol Fox
Richard Littauer
Perrie Ojemeh
Memo Esparza
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Our special guest today is Abhishek Sharma, who is the head of a design company called ColoredCow. He is currently managing one of the open source projects called Glific, which is a WhatsApp based open source communication platform for NGOs to have conversations with their community. Abhishek shares his journey of self-discovery when he realized he really enjoyed design and problem solving, and not engineering. He tells us about his role as Community Manager at Glific, and how listening to the communities is very important for designers who want to make meaningful, impactful products. We learn about what he wants to do in the future for the open source space with designers and he shares some “best practices” for designers to be able to collaborate with NGOs more. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out more!
[00:01:55] Abhishek tells us what he does and his role at ColoredCow and Glific
[00:03:43] With Abhishek taking on so many different job titles and job positions, Eriol wonders how Abhishek manages his time and makes sure he’s doing each of the roles well, and does he see other designers in open source doing this as well.
[00:07:08] We find out how Abhishek’s started to engage in creative projects and the path leading to where he is today.
[00:10:37] How does Abhishek engage the kinds of people that Glific is most useful for?
[00:14:52] Perrie asks Abhishek based on him working on the community engagement part if he thinks getting people together and then giving them space to learn, if that will increase the adoption of products.
[00:16:54] Memo wonders how Abhishek interacts with this open source culture in his organization with design.
[00:18:36] How does Abhishek view himself as a Designer as well as a Community Manager?
[00:20:13] Eriol shares their thoughts on what Richard and Abhishek were talking about with the role of the Community Manager and listening to communities.
[00:23:09] Abhishek shares how he wants to engage designers in the open source space in the future. Also, he talks about how a lot of designers want to know everything before they start producing something.
[00:29:56] We learn from Abhishek what the “best practices” are that designers have to learn to be able to collaborate with NGOs more.
[00:32:24] Find out where you follow Abhishek on the internet.
Quotes
[00:07:41] “And I did a quick self-discovery where I wanted, I drew some Venn diagrams, figured out, okay, this is what I’m good at.”
[00:08:37] “I was really not good at it at the beginning, I was just full of ambition that: okay, this is what I wanted to do.”
[00:10:48] “I have started seeing my role as equating product management to actually being this community facilitator, and engagement creator for lack of a better word.”
[00:11:48] “It’s not really the tech or the solution, it’s really about the problem that the NGOs are solving, so it kind of gives them a space or the topic that there is a need with.”
[00:12:27] “We are actively building a support channel and community space where these NGOs can interact with each other, with their team, development team, design team, support team, and with each other so they can learn from each other.”
[00:18:47] “The thing that happens as a Community Manager role is it keeps increasing your empathy towards the users, towards the space, because as a designer, what I need to do is solve problems.”
[00:19:42] “I feel this role of being a Community Manager and listening to the communities is very important for all designers out there who want to make meaningful impactful products.”
[00:21:33] “I if you’re not telling the right story of the product, then also you lose a lot of the impact of the product.”
[00:26:29] “What ends up happening is when you create you first learn, but when you learn you’re not creating.”
[00:26:43] “It’s like a math problem: you can’t solve a problem just by reading math, you have to actually solve those problems.”
Spotlight
[00:33:56] Memo’s spotlight is a resource repository model called Nice Very Nice.
[00:34:35] Perrie’s spotlight is a new open source initiative called Open Source Stories.
[00:35:21] Richard’s spotlight is Tiny Cat, the online catalog for tiny libraries.
[00:35:51] Eriol’s spotlight is a project made by the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists and the tool called Coalesce.
[00:36:55] Abhishek’s spotlights are the open source design community, and a project that they do at ColoredCow called Code Trek.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Richard Littauer Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Perrie Ojemeh Twitter
Memo Esparza Twitter
Abhishek Sharma Twitter
Abhishek Sharma Linkedin
Abhishek Sharma (Medium)
ColoredCow
Glific
Nice Very Nice
Open Source Stories
Tiny Cat
Federation of Tech/Coalesce-GitHub
Code Trek
Sustain Podcast- Episode 69-Humanitarian Open Source with Michael Nolan
Sustain Podcast- Episode 86-Kavita Kapoor and HFOSS: Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software
Special Guest: Abhishek Sharma.

Oct 19, 2021 • 40min
Episode 11: Aditya Patel and Building Better Design Practices as a Product Director
Guest
Aditya Patel
Panelists
Eriol Fox | Richard Littauer
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers.
We are very excited to have as our guest today, Aditya Patel, who is the Director of Product at HotWax Commerce, a startup company. He does a lot of stuff with designers and he’s a designer himself, so today he explains to us his approach to design. Aditya goes in depth about what HotWax Commerce is and how it works. He fills us in on the design system he created in Figma, and more about Storefront UI. Eriol brings up an interesting topic about “Heuristic Analysis.” Also, we hear Aditya’s approach to finding the balance between creating innovative designs and managing implementation challenges. There are so many interesting conversations today, so download this episode now to find out more!
[00:02:22] Aditya talks about what he does, how he ended up in HotWax Commerce, and more about the product for retailers.
[00:04:52] Aditya explains his idea for his approach to design and what he considers design at HotWax Commerce.
[00:07:28] We find out more about how HotWax Commerce collects feedback from consumers and how the key performance indicator (KPI) is used.
[00:11:44] We learn Aditya’s thoughts on the topic of sometimes not ever knowing who is using your open source and how this could be improved, and Eriol gives us their thoughts on this as well.
[00:14:08] After Aditya shares an example of what he does when he’s in that situation of “how do you tell if what you’ve done is useful without people coming back to you,” and Eriol talks about “Heuristic Analysis” which they recommend to designers to do on open source projects they want to contribute to.
[00:17:21] Aditya wrote a UI framework that’s part of a UI kit that he put into Figma and he explains how that works. He also tells us more about the Storefront UI made by Vue Storefront.
[00:22:06] Eriol asks Aditya to talk about how long it took him to do all these things with the framework, some of the conversations he had with his team about doing the work and implementing it and using it, and how beneficial this is for open source organizations to do this themselves.
[00:28:14] Richard wonders what the balance is between creating “innovative” designs and managing implementation challenges within this framework and how does he balance that.
[00:32:12] Aditya expands more about Behance and Dribbble and how they don’t functionally make sense with dead end workflows. Eriol wonders how these two things interlink.
[00:35:09] Find out where you can follow Aditya on the internet.
Quotes
[00:04:56] “Well, what’s interesting is, I find that if you kind of have to have the same mental approach of designing because your consumer’s a consumer no matter if they’re the end consumer or if they’re using it to deliver something else.”
[00:05:44] “So, essentially the way I think about it, I think which is pretty broad, but I guess it has to be, which is: it’s how your consumer or your user fulfills their tasks.”
[00:06:12] “Your design has to stem from: is it really helping them do this better?”
[00:08:40] “And the good thing about B2B software which is different from end consumer stuff is there’s a KPI tied to what you sold to this person.”
[00:15:21] “But when you come back to it two months later, you’re like, wow, this is not that easy to use!”
[00:15:30] “So that’s just a way without feedback, you can kind of give yourself feedback by becoming a third person by stepping away from it for a while.”
[00:24:07] “And so you end up writing this endless cycle of cut some technical debt of code and that’s the real thing that we were hunting to figure out, like we have to stop this.”
[00:26:56] “And then the real magic or the real bliss happens, it’s like you put two atoms together and your molecule comes together with auto layout and it’s just like a dream come true.”
[00:29:22] “I can’t make my left foot happy and have my right foot be shot because my development is hell.”
[00:30:04] “You do a small 5% innovation, you figure it out so now you have that in your tool belt, and you do another 5% of innovation in design. That’s when you eventually get to like better innovation and you get to figure out how to do more and more innovation in your design.”
[00:32:16] “You know what’s funny is the first thought I have is the exact opposite of what I wrote, which is these people out there making designs that don’t actually do anything are probably the inspiration inside of when you’re thinking within the system.”
[00:32:40] “I think it wouldn’t be interesting if there were more people out there that were using all of these Dribbble and Behance designs if they were more like, oh, I use this design system and use it in a way that you’d never thought of.”
[00:33:33] “I think what you’re described is a really tricky problem. It’s a design culture problem potentially where wouldn’t it be beautiful if we celebrated designers using systems and using frameworks.”
[00:34:53] “I’m a bit of a dreamer when I think about these kinds of things, but the balance that you bring is much more like, this is how things could be, this is how things should be, this is the way in which this could be done, which is I think, fantastic!”
Spotlight
[00:36:12] Eriol’s spotlight is vermontcomplexsystems.org Ocean Awards Program.
[00:37:25] Richard’s spotlight is Talisk, an amazing band from Scotland.
[00:37:48] Aditya’s spotlight is Storefront UI.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Richard Littauer Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Aditya Patel Twitter
Aditya Patel Linkedin
HotWax Commerce
“10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design”-Nielson Norman Group
Atomic Design by Brad Frost
Ocean Awards Program
Talisk
Storefront UI-GitHub
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Aditya Patel.

Oct 5, 2021 • 38min
Episode 10: Justin Scherer on Open Source Design at Stax
Guest
Justin Scherer
Panelists
Eriol Fox | Memo Esparza | Georgia Bullen
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. We have a very cool guest today, Justin Scherer, who has been designing software as a job for a decade or so, and he has done so for multi-national banks, national marketing campaigns, and small humanitarian not-for-profits. Lately, he’s been working on tech for crisis response and the humanitarian sector, as well as developer tools and fintech products. Today, Justin tells us his story of his pathway to getting into designing software, working with Hover, building the personal finance app called Stax. He gives us an “exclusive” on how things are working with his design team, how he wants them to work, and more about the operations. He also goes in depth about how important the focus of research should be. Download this episode to find out much more!
[00:01:37] Justin tells us about himself and what he’s working on right now, which is a personal finance app called Stax.
[00:02:39] We find out more about the product Stax, Hover Developer Services, and the team structure.
[00:06:09] We find out the pathway to Justin’s career starting with his educational background.
[00:10:52] Eriol is interested to know more about how the design team is made up, what kind of activities and roles they do, and how open source plays into that.
[00:12:43] Justin gives an “exclusive” on how things are working now with his design team and how he wants them to work.
[00:17:57] Georgia asks Justin to explain more about the operations since that always seems to be the biggest challenge. He talks about a research study they are doing now finding out what kind of coin people want to get paid in.
[00:22:04] Justin tells us about challenges he’s run into with implementing open source design contributions and the issue he had with this.
[00:25:03] Memo asks Justin to talk more about how design research plays its role on the whole process they set up on Stax and is that design research work open source.
[00:29:13] Justin shares some critical breakthroughs that have come from the insights of research and how important research should be focused on.
Quotes
[00:11:11] “It’s a team of ten, so everyone does design, everyone does UX on some level, that’s like a sort of personal philosophy of mine, you know like great ideas or insights for a UX come from developers, they come from the CEO, they come from interns, they come from everybody.”
[00:14:12] “I think of analytics is almost like the truffle pig in the design process.”
[00:15:35] “And so I’d love to be able to source a lot of the sort of lower level, I think of like Small “D” and Big “D” Design.”
[00:22:51] “I think contributing the source back into the community is the thing that makes this not fiber.”
[00:23:37] “I used to work a major bank, you couldn’t even talk to a user without six NDAs and four levels of approval from sixteen VPs whose titles you can’t even pronounce.”
[00:25:23] “I think again, in order to have open source design contributions we need to have open source research, and this is one of the things that I’ve been struggling with a little bit.”
[00:26:53] “My focus has always been like get the research, get the insight, and that’s the thing that’s going to sell your design at the end of the day.”
[00:27:41] “I always make the joke, like all the good ideas at Stax come from research.”
[00:33:07] “I think that’s actually the source of open source design really, it’s not the design files, it’s the knowledge and insight and those things that go around the design without which you’re essentially just copying other people on Dribbble at the end of the day.”
Spotlight
[00:34:07] Memo’s spotlight is an open source project called humaaans.
[00:35:03] Georgia’s spotlight is an open source project called PhishDetect.
[00:36:00] Eriol’s spotlight is a project from MozFest 2018 called Xenshana.
[00:36:43] Justin’s spotlight is open source hardware called Music Thing Modular by Tom Whitwell who is based in London.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Memo Esparza Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Georgia Bullen Twitter
Justin Scherer Twitter
Justin Scherer Website
Hover
Stax Twitter
Dribbble
humaaans
PhishDetect
Simply Secure-“Strength In Numbers: Designing to Help At-Risk Users Protect Against Phishing Attacks by Kelsey Smith
Xenshana-GitHub
Music Thing Modular
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Justin Scherer.

Sep 28, 2021 • 35min
Episode 9: Andy Gonzalez and Contributing and Collaborating as a Designer
Guest
Andy Gonzalez
Panelists
Memo Esparza | Eriol Fox | Perrie Ojemeh
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Today, we have a really great guest with us, Andy Gonzalez, who works as UX Designer at Kaleidos Open Source and he collaborates with different design schools as a teacher and mentor. Kaleidos is a company that creates disruptive digital platforms, driven by a positive impact of technology on society, and is now focused on Penpot and Taiga, two open source platforms meant for digital product teams. Andy tells us all what drove Kaleidos to build an open source platform, and more about how Penpot and Taiga were created. We also find out what Andy sees in the future for collaboration, he explains four things that they consider contributions from a community member for Penpot, and if you’re interested in making contributions to Penpot, Andy explains where you can do that. Download this episode now to find out much more!
[00:01:45] Andy tells us about himself and he got involved in his career.
[00:04:02] Memo wonders how Andy got involved in open source stuff.
[00:07:14] Eriol asks Andy to talk about his experience with education, specifically about what he thinks about how designers are taught, either in education or when they self- teach in terms of tooling and software. Also, where does he see the culture of designers moving towards when we start to build more open source tooling.
[00:10:44] Andy tells us more about Kaleidos, Penpot, and Taiga.
[00:12:05] We learn from Andy what people are doing with these design tools that are making it more inclusive.
[00:15:54] Memo asks Andy how Kaleidos decided to invest themselves in building this platform.
[00:19:24] Andy explains four things that they consider contributions from a community member for Penpot, and Memo explains what they are doing at Open Collective with contributions.
[00:25:13] What does Andy see in the future for collaboration?
[00:28:10] Perrie wonders where people can make contributions to Penpot, and Andy tells us.
Quotes
[00:04:48] “When I think about that, I think that is a bit sad because to be honest I also have worked with open source tools.”
[00:05:59] “It was a journey and now I can say I am fully committed to open source projects and to the open source committee as well.”
[00:08:48] “Because, well in general times, I still believe that the tool should not be important, but the truth is that it is, and the tool is also a political space which is something that we usually forget.”
[00:10:00] “We are trying to break this, we are trying to break this model and we are trying to build a tool that helps the inclusion of the students, on every process, on every work done that they can share.”
[00:18:55] “We really want the designers to be first class citizens in the open source design worlds which we believe that is something that is not happening right now.”
[00:26:32] “There is a pain, there is a true pain when connecting all the dots, when connecting calls to design, design to calls were not in content to your designs.”
Spotlight
[00:30:10] Andy’s spotlight is Pure Data Software for visual programming.
[00:31:03] Perrie’s spotlight is Open Source Community Africa Festival.
[00:31:38] Eriol’s spotlight is a tool called Bitsy, a pixel game creator, by Le-doux.
[00:32:40] Memo’s spotlight is a book called Interaction of Color by Josef Albers.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Memo Esparza Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Perrie Ojemeh Twitter
Andy Gonzalez Twitter
Andy Gonzalez Linkedin
Andy Gonzalez Website
Kaleidos
Penpot-GitHub
Taiga-GitHub
Penpot Contributing guide
Pure Data
Purr Data-GitHub
Open Source Community Africa
Bitsy-GitHub
Interaction of Color by Josef Albers
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Andy Gonzalez.

Sep 21, 2021 • 27min
Episode 8: Kartik Choudhary on MLH Fellowships and Design
Guest
Kartik Choudhary
Panelists
Memo Esparza | Eriol Fox | Perrie Ojemeh
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Today, our special guest is Kartik Choudhary, who is a Front-End Web Application and Design Engineer, with a focus on progressive enhancements and creativity. Kartik worked on Facebook’s React project through the MLH Fellowship and he tells us all about that today. He shares his ideas for ways Fellowship programs could be designed differently, being a mentor for students, the effects that contributions to open source has done to his career, and a blog he wrote about it. Also, Kartik tells us about a Developer Folio he is working on that is in dire state of needing design contributions. Find out how you can help and download this episode to find out much more!
[00:01:24] Kartik tells us all about himself, what he does, and how he worked on Facebook’s React project through the MLH Fellowship. He goes in depth what he did there and what he took away from that experience.
[00:04:41] Eriol asks Kartik to talk about what it was like going into a Fellowship and what kind of conversations did he have around design or conversations you had to run the design aspects of open source within the fellowship. Also, if there were any other people with design knowledge there and if his mentors knew much about the process of adding design in the open design process.
[00:07:08] Memo wonders what kind of resources Kartik relies on most in terms of design work, and Kartik talks about the program being more focused on developing and coding.
[00:10:00] Find out from Kartik if he could have the fellowships be a certain way, how would he design these programs.
[00:12:01] We learn Kartik’s thoughts on how to make a collaboration on the projects accessible for everyone, and he talks about being a mentor.
[00:14:21] Kartik tells us about the first moment when he started to really get into the design side of things and learn more.
[00:15:56] Kartik mentions that he realized that the user experience was poor on websites he built, and Memo wonders what hints he found showing that it wasn’t right.
[00:16:58] Perrie wonders what effects does Kartik think that contributions to open source has done to his career, and he explains a blog he wrote called, “Building a Developer Profile using Open Source.”
[00:19:37] Eriol wonders how we can communicate to designers about the potentials of open source for their portfolio and how would Kartik start to convince a designer to contribute to an open source project.
[00:21:51] Learn about a design portfolio that Kartik’s been working on that’s in a dire state of needing design contributions.
Quotes
[00:03:50] “So, it was apart from being mentorship experience, it was a collaborative experience which kind of made it a lot better than the usual programs.”
[00:11:16] “I think similar programs should also exist for onboarding design students to projects so this would create sort of like a healthy community in open source software so design beginners can also feel they’re included and that they’re contributing.”
[00:18:34] "I think building a career or building a portfolio through open source should also be an option to designers.”
[00:22:35] “In general, just hang around in developer communities, even if there are small ones, there are generally a lot of passionate people who are, you know, just willing to work on a project together, and there are a lot of them.”
[00:23:49] “Like you said, designers have to internally infiltrate groups. I think that is the current state of things, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
[00:23:58] “So, the more open source design mentorship programs, or if you push design into current mentorship programs, I think the more students are going to become normalized with having designers on their team, and the students are going to be probably the next open source maintainers.”
Spotlight
[00:24:42] Kartik’s spotlight is a project he’s maintaining called Developer Folio.
[00:25:14] Eriol’s spotlight is Patternfly.org.
[00:25:59] Memo’s spotlight is Coop Design system and their Design principles.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Memo Esparza Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Perrie Ojemeh Twitter
Kartik Choudhary Twitter
Kartik Choudhary Linkedin
Kartik Choudhary Website
“Building a Developer Profile using Open Source,” by Kartik Choudhary
Open Source Design Jobs
Software Developer Folio
Patternfly.org
Coop Design system-Design principles
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Kartik Choudhary.

Sep 14, 2021 • 36min
Episode 7: Cristina Chumillas on Design at Drupal
Guest
Cristina Chumillas
Panelists
Eriol Fox | Memo Esparza | Richard Littauer
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. On today’s episode, we have as our guest, Cristina Chumillas, who is a Front-end Developer at Lullabot and UX Core Maintainer at Drupal. We will find out how Cristina got into the design field, and how she got involved in working with Drupal and Lullabot. She tells us how her experience has been as a designer who has contributed code and design, and what Drupal does to recognize contributors of all types. Cristina shares some great advice if you are a young designer just starting out. Also, find out the company that is the biggest contributor to Drupal and more about Design4Drupal and what they focus on. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more, and if you’re interested please subscribe!
[00:01:30] Cristina tells us about herself and how she got into working in the design world. She also tells us how she got involved in working with Drupal.
[00:04:52] Eriol wonders if Cristina ever contributed code and if she can share an experience being a designer who has contributed code and contributed design and the differences.
[00:08:26] As Cristina formalizes the UX working group, we hear how her experience has been of people seeing her as a designer and seeing that working as the design group who makes all the design decisions.
[00:10:19] Eriol asks if Cristina’s had painful conversations or joyful ones with trying to advocate for really great user experience.
[00:11:00] Since contributions are now sponsored and there’s a lot of paid and unpaid work, Cristina tells us how this enters into the conversation of who has more say and who’s heard more.
[00:13:52] Memo wonders how a project like Drupal can stay independent from big sponsors.
[00:15:35] Cristina tells us about Lullabot.
[00:17:23] We learn from Caristina the reason she went to work for Drupal and how the conversations about contributing to open source started with them.
[00:19:23] There’s a story going on that there’s a perception in the industry that open source is done by a hobbyist, and Richard is curious to know how Cristina feels about this story. She also tells us what Drupal does and what she does to recognize contributors of all types.
[00:22:24] Eriol brings up contribution recognition and asks Cristina if she’s noticed or does she think there are differences in how designers want to be recognized as contributors, are there different values that designers have when they’re contributing to open source, and is there a way to grow that, encourage that, and support that.
[00:24:23] Cristina tells us about an event called “Design4Drupal” and what they focus on. Eriol also wonders if there are other things that Cristina would like to see and what her “wishlist” is.
[00:27:43] Listen to advice from Cristina if you’re a young designer just starting out.
[00:30:05] Find out where you can follow Cristina on the internet and where you can get involved with design in Drupal.
Quotes
[00:12:14] “So, the companies that had a bigger budget to actually pay for this contributor were actually the ones that were having bigger projects so the features that made him were the ones that were needed for bigger projects.”
[00:12:38] “And sadly this means that are not as many freelancers out there as there were anymore.”
[00:20:52] “That’s really a recent change that we’ve had in the Drupal community. Actually, there’s a blog post.” (link below)
[00:22:43] “What I usually see when I see designers that really don’t know the communities, like I really don’t care about Drupal’s contributions. It’s something that they really don’t mind, they really don’t understand or need, unless they are paid by a company.”
[00:23:10] “Also getting involved in a big project, it takes a lot of time. It’s not like you can just dig into the project and understand what you need to do in like two hours. You probably need one or two days to understand the project, understand the need of that specific thing.”
Spotlight
[00:32:40] Memo’s spotlight is the first open source project he used called Opendesk.
[00:33:27] Richard’s spotlight is Extinction Rebellion.
[00:34:08] Eriol’s spotlight is an article called, “Design APIs like you design User Experience.”
[00:35:15] Cristina’s spotlight is a project called Variablefonts.io.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Richard Littauer Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Memo Esparza Twitter
Cristina Chumillas Linkedin
Cristina Chumillas Twitter
Drupal
Lullabot
Drupal Association-Contribution Recognition and the Drupal Project
Design4Drupal
Frontend United
Opendesk
Extinction Rebellion
“Design APIs like you design User Experience” (Better Practices Medium Publication)
Variablefonts.io
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Cristina Chumillas.

Sep 7, 2021 • 36min
Episode 5: Bryan Paget on Open Source Developers with Design Thinking
Guest
Bryan Paget
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Today we have as our guest, Bryan Paget, who is a Data Scientist for Health Canada. We find out what Bryan does as a Data Scientist, his interest in Linux, his ideas on consistency and expression existing within open source, and what design means to him. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more, and if you’re interested please subscribe!
[00:02:16] Bryan tells us what he does as a Data Scientist.
[00:03:12] Eriol talks about data cleaning and how tricky it is to understand the best ways to facilitate it, and Bryan talks about data catalogs.
[00:05:45] Eriol asks Bryan if he’s had the same experience with being excited about projects such as complex data systems, complex backend systems, or operating systems.
[00:06:51] We learn more about Bryan’s interest in Linux and what sparks these conversations he has about open source and design.
[00:09:55] Richard asks Bryan how we could help conversations be less long and exhausting and make it easier for people to have the space and energy to engage in ways that help them feel like they’re accomplishing something. Bryan and Eriol share their thoughts on the platform usage.
[00:17:33] Bryan tells us why he uses Linux.
[00:19:38] Richard wonders how Bryan would define designer, and then to define what design is for him.
[00:20:41] Eriol and Bryan have a discussion on the subject of consistency and expression existing within the open source.
[00:24:01] Eriol talks about something they have struggled with and that is seeing a lot of resistance by designers wanting to contribute to a systems-based approach to open source tools.
[00:28:54] Eriol asks Bryan his thoughts on how to engage open source developers in design thinking, what are ways in which he wants to learn more, and what would he ask Eriol, who’s an open source designer, to do for him.
[00:33:19] Find out where you can follow Bryan online.
Quotes
[00:17:57] “So I think it’s just about being able to do things the way I want and be able to express myself the way I want. That’s like a common theme throughout my life is I like to just be myself and do what I want within reason.”
[00:20:16] “I want to use words like curation and choice, like there’s something about I have a certain vision or a feeling, and I want to produce something that reflects that.”
[00:20:25] “But design is also a bit more functional that pure art. That was a huge rift actually when I went to art schools.”
Spotlight
[00:34:03] Richard’s spotlight is Anki.
[00:34:22] Eriol’s spotlight is Dark Patterns Tip Line.
[00:35:29] Bryan’s spotlight is Libre Graphics Meeting.
Links
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Richard Littauer Twitter
Eriol Fox Twitter
Bryan Paget Website
Bryan Paget Linkedin
Bryan Paget Twitter
Health Canada
Twitter Thread/IMakeFOSS
Anki
Dark Patterns Tip Line
Libre Graphics Meeting
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Bryan Paget.

Aug 11, 2021 • 33min
Episode 6: Gleb Sabirzyanov on Open Design and the Figma Plugin Ecosystem
Guest
Gleb Sabirzyanov
Panelists
Memo Esparza | Richard Littauer
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Today we have as our guest, Gleb Sabirzyanov, Designer and Digital Maker of all things. Gleb is currently doing all things related to Figma. He tells us about the plugins he built, Blend and Master, a project he started working on called Pink Turtles, and where he sees the future of Figma evolving in the next couple of years. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more, and if you’re interested please subscribe!
[00:01:14] Gleb tells us more about himself and how he started working in open source. He talks about two plugins he built called Blend and Master.
[00:03:10] How did Gleb get involved into the world of design?
[00:05:28] Gleb talks about how his relationship with Figma has been evolving.
[00:08:01] We learn how Figma works as a platform for designers as well as how they enable you to build plugins.
[00:09:55] Richard wonders what Gleb is using the tools for that he’s building and how does he make sure that he’s approaching the need of people who are using Figma to build their own websites if he’s just building plugins.
[00:11:45] Memo asks Gleb about the future of Figma and how he sees it evolving in the next couple of years.
[00:14:51] Gleb talks about designers working on open source but using tools that are not open source, and Memo shares more about the Figma community with us.
[00:19:35] Gleb shares his views on open design and a project he started working on called Pink Turtles.
[00:24:27] Memo asks Gleb how we can bring all of the talented people into the design comfort zone and make them realize that they are creative and that they can produce designs by themselves.
[00:27:59] Find out where you can follow Gleb on the internet.
Quotes
[00:11:51] “I think Figma is an interesting tool and an interesting company because it changed the design industry pretty heavily. It inspired designers to be more open in their process.”
[00:12:57] “But, in the future I think it will be even more about collaboration and openness of the design process.”
[00:14:22] “We usually have these conversations around when to use open source tools and how to balance your life with your stack of tools and say that you support open source, but we actually use tools that are not open source by definition.”
[00:23:51] “But Gleb is right, there should be like a lot more other players out there thinking with the same rules or even, but you know, maybe a different set of rules of just how to create ways of designing more in the open.”
[00:24:08] “I think that would be a really nice design prompt, to think about ideas of tools and projects that help designers and non-designers which is really important for designer teams all over, you know, how to include non-designers into the design process.”
[00:27:44] “But also if somebody is interested in design, in like visual aspect of it, people can of course learn from the designers and from their decisions and maybe help contribute to the project as well.”
[00:31:04] “I just love how Figma is seizing all of the situation to, like gather more people around the design team because this tool for me is to include more people of the team that are not designers, which I think is great.”
Spotlight
[00:28:53] Richard’s spotlight is a post by Justin Jackson called, “This is a web page.”
[00:29:37] Gleb’s spotlight is VK Project on Figma community.
[00:30:28] Memo’s spotlight is a new Figma product called FigJam.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Design & UX working group
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Gleb Sabirzyanov Twitter
Gleb Sabirzyanov Website
Gleb Sabirzyanov YouTube
Figma
Master-Plugin for Figma
Pink Turtles Twitter
Blend Plugin for Figma
“This is a web page” by Justin Jackson
VK-Figma
FigJam
FigJam Whiteboard exercise
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Gleb Sabirzyanov.

Jul 28, 2021 • 35min
Episode 4: Jan Dittrich and the Anthropology of Open Source Design
Guest
Jan Dittrich
Panelists
Eriol Fox | Richard Littauer
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain Open Source Design! On this podcast, we will talk about sustaining open source with design. Learn how we, as designers, interface with open source in a sustainable way, how we integrate into different communities, and how we as coders, work with other designers. Our special guest is Jan Dittrich, a UX Designer and researcher. He works at Wikimedia Germany and is working on their PhD about self-directed learning practices in anthropology. Today, we find out Jan’s journey through open source, projects he has done with art and design students around open source, what he’s doing with his PhD work in anthropology, what he means by “nerd culture,” working with recipes and methods, and where he sees the open source movement going in the future. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more, and if you’re interested please subscribe!
[00:01:38] Jan tells us their journey through open source and how he got from there to where he is today.
[00:04:15] Jan tells us what projects he did with art students and design students around open source.
[00:08:00] We learn about Jan’s PhD in anthropology and what he’s doing there. He also explains “nerd culture.”
[00:12:56] Eriol asks Jan to speak about their work and investigation into open source culture, UX Design culture, and design culture specifically, also the cultural overlaps and their work there.
[00:17:20] Eriol wonders if Jan thinks this culture is shifting and what he has noticed changing in the ten years of being involved in various different projects.
[00:20:59] Richard mentions since Jan works a lot with recipes and methods trying to figure out how people are working together, he wonders what Jan thinks a better system might include.
[00:25:19] We find out what Jan thinks about what the open source design movement is doing right now, where he sees it going in the future, and the different work he does as well. Eriol shares a recent mentoring experience they had recently.
[00:29:58] Jan gives us some closing thoughts on their experiences with open source design and open source.
[00:31:54] Find out where you can follow Jan on the internet.
Spotlight
[00:32:58] Richard’s spotlight is a PDF he read by John Wiegley, “Git from the Bottom Up” which is a great resource for understanding how Git works.
[00:33:37] Eriol’s spotlight is an open source project called Beyond20, which integrates with various things that you can use to play Dungeons & Dragons.
[00:34:10] Jan’s spotlight is an open source project called p5.js, which is a JavaScript library for creative coding.
Links
Open Source Design Twitter
Open Source Design
Sustain Open Source Twitter
Jan Dittrich Twitter
Jan Dittrich Linkedin
Jan Dittrich Website
“The user in the cultures of UX design and open source” by Jan Dittrich
FOSSDEM 2021- “The user in the cultures of UX design and open source” with Jan Dittrich (video)
The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revoltionary (Wikipedia)
“Git from the Bottom Up” by John Wiegley
Beyond20-GitHub
p5.js
Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Special Guest: Jan Dittrich.