- Low visibility: Designers cannot easily find open source projects that actively welcome design help.
- Missing documentation: Most communities build great onboarding guides for software developers but provide little guidance for design workflows.
- Platform barriers: Technical development platforms like GitHub present a steep learning curve for non-developers.
- Hidden friction: Strategic work beyond visual design, such as user research and accessibility audits, often faces the highest resistance.
The look and feel of your Ubuntu Desktop depends on careful design choices. To make future releases even cleaner and easier to navigate, Canonical is working to bring more creative design talent into the open source ecosystem. A recent study by their team reveals exactly what is holding back user experience progress and how the community can fix it.
Canonical Survey Exposes the Usability Gap
To understand what prevents creative professionals from participating in the ecosystem, the Canonical design team surveyed 115 global designers and interviewed 11 active open source contributors. The participants included user experience designers, graphic artists, accessibility specialists, and researchers.
The findings highlight a major disconnect: while open source software powers roughly 90% of modern technology tools, these projects are historically driven by programmers. As a result, software interfaces can be highly functional but difficult for everyday users to navigate. This is a challenge that Canonical is actively trying to resolve across its product line.
The Four Main Challenges and Their Solutions
| Challenge | Impact on Designers | Actionable Solution for Maintainers |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Poor Visibility | Designers do not know where to look or which projects accept creative input. | Use dedicated platforms like Open Source Design or Contribute.design to flag open tasks. |
| 2. Weak Onboarding | A lack of context leaves contributors unsure about target audiences, brand rules, or technical limits. | Create a clear design onboarding page with a structured contribution brief. |
| 3. Hard-to-Use Platforms | Git-based environments like GitHub and GitLab feel unfamiliar and intimidating to visual creators. | Share beginner-friendly video tutorials or written guides to simplify repository workflows. |
| 4. Pushback on Strategy | Non-visual contributions like user research or accessibility audits face constant skepticism. | Educate the community on holistic product design and create transparent guidelines for reviewing non-code work. |
Real-World Examples of Success
A few communities are already breaking down these walls and retaining talented design teams:
- Bitcoin Design: This project publishes a clear Get Started manual specifically written for creative contributors.
- Layer5: This community runs structured mentorship programs, maintains transparent design logs, and hosts regular live community syncs.
- Canonical: The team behind Ubuntu has shared a free contribution brief template and launched an entry-level GitHub video tutorial to help ease the technical transition.
How to Move Forward
If you are a designer: Look for projects using design-friendly tags. Do not hesitate to ask maintainers for a project brief detailing their core goals and technical constraints.
If you manage a project: Dedicate a space in your documentation for user experience. Call out exactly where your interface needs help, and openly welcome non-visual tasks like user testing. When more communities adopt these habits, open source software will become accessible to everyone.
Feel free to share your experience trying to contribute design to an open source project in the comments below.