Communication

[Erioldoesdesign]

Designers were asked to describe what worked well and what didn’t work well in terms of communication.

“Feedback real time” and “(the communication process) Has to work well with the people that we collaborate with”. The designers had a preference for “email comms and chains of threads… could trace comms that way” alongside larger documents that can capture the processes used by the designer and the processes used by the particular OSS projects “Notion is great for documenting the process”.

Designers described being flexible to prevent communications problems to do with a tool used for gaining feedback, and expressed that they would find another tool or other methods to better fit the developers/maintainers in an OSS project.

Designers also recognise that, like themselves, some contributors are not always in communications channels or actively contributing. One designer described needing to be "persistent" with communications.

Designers expressed that meetings are not needed for small details but we also discovered in our study that sometimes small details or small decisions provoked complicated discussions.

Having direct communication with developers working on a specific OSS is important to the designers working on that same OSS. Meetings were described as sparse and not where work gets done but where updates happen. Written communications and comments in design files is where the progression on design work for OSS tends to take place. “If I don't get a response quickly I'll lose interest. I need people to be quick if it’s free contributions.” and “Comments are helpful - "’it’s good’ isn’t helpful (the feedback) needs to be more (defined) but there isn’t a good dialogue with the design.”

Another designer had a different opinion on meetings stating that they were “big on setting meetings. Working meetings are the way I get work done. I need to gather knowledge in the meeting and then also to demo design for feedback and make progress.”

One designer described communications on OSS projects as “easy because (they) text on WhatsApp and many are friends” and that most of their contributions to OSS have previously had design guidelines or places where they could gather information on how to do design for the OSS. Miscommunication hasn’t been an issue but slow communication in OSS where they are not friends with the other contributors has been present.

One participant detailed a specific challenge they have in that they are not confident with their English language skills and that most popular and prominent OSS operate in English. They were often worried about miscommunication from their side and did not feel good when they received feedback or participated in communication that was difficult for them.