Blog

Open Source Designers: A community of practice for design & user experience people in Open Source

Leisa Reichelt has started a Ning community for designers contributing to open source projects.

If you’re doing design & user experience work in an open source community, then chances are we have a lot in common – no matter what community we’re working in. We have some big challenges every day, but we also know that if we can overcome those challenges we can make a really big contribution to the sustainability and increased popularity of open source software.

The purpose of this site is to create a space where we can come together to share our experiences, to ask each other questions, to compare notes and to promote the projects we’re working on and help get some extra eyes on our work – and to act as a support network.

I like the initial discussion Leisa started about how to contribute to Open Source design.

http://www.designintheopen.org/

Playing with DIY UI Magnets

konigi diy gui magnets

I'm experimenting with making magnets of some of the elements of the Wireframe Stencil to use for prototyping. Was an interesting experiment printing and cutting these. Next time I think I'll have to laminate the sheet first, and then cut. The lamination might make it possible to write on them with dry erase marker. If you write directly on the magnet sheets the ink will stay permanently I'd think. The surface seems kind of porous and a little textured.

When I get a version that seems to work, I'll post PDFs to the Tools section that you can download for free, or as donationware. You can then print on Avery 3270 Magnet Sheets.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jibbajabba/3658427576/?addedcomment=1#comment72157620359280161

The Feast Conference

I've registered to join the Feast Conference in New York City on Oct. 1.

The Feast Conference gathers the world's greatest innovators from across industries and society to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change. A creative look at the world's toughest problems, The Feast Conference presents the most innovative solutions, insights, and best practices as a catalyst toward action.

More than a conference, The Feast represents a bottom-up movement, so we're curating an audience as cross-disciplinary and diverse as our talks. But we're doing something a little different -- we ask those who can afford to pay higher prices to micro-sponsor The Feast, which allows us to offer $99 invitations to awe-inspiring vanguards whose brains get them where their wallets can't.

Bottom-up innovation, unparalleled connections and real exchange -- that's something we can sink our teeth into. Join us and get full on good.

Some of my friends and colleagues know that over the years I've talked about and have been looking for productive ways to fuse my interests in creativity and education/learning with my interests in activism, and the need to live with compassion and empathy. Increasingly, I also want to bring my knowledge and skillset as a web designer into this amorphous mass of desire and need to contribute more positively to society and improve the human condition. I haven't been to an event that fuses the creativity and activism before, so I'm hoping to get inspired and make connections there.

I've alluded to my interest in doing something like this in whatever small way I can via Konigi, but that plan hasn't manifested yet. I'm hoping to meet some like-minded people at this event, and elsewhere in whatever way I can. If you're like-minded in this sense, and feel a similar pull, I'm always willing to chat over coffee in the NYC area. I can be reached here.

http://www.feastongood.com/