Blog posts tagged "open design"

Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core challenges UI/UX designers face when contributing, and how maintainers can solve them.

As designers working at Canonical, we’re always thinking about open source. We believe that encouraging more designers to contribute to open source  benefits everyone, from the project maintainers to the end users themselves.   In the 2025 edition of FOSSBackstage conference, we presented our research findings on  why designers don’t get

Open source thrives on engineering-driven processes. Fast feedback loops, terminal tools, Git workflows: they’re the lifeblood of how we build software in the open. But for software to truly excel, we need to create user experiences that empower people to use them. I wanted to bring this conversation into the spotlight as part of Canonica

Last year, we had the opportunity to speak at Regent’s UX Conference (Regent’s University London’s conference to showcase UX work by staff, students, and alumni), where we engaged with students to make them aware of open design and their ability to contribute design skills to open source projects. The talk sparked great discussion, and we

Last year, we collaborated with two design student teams from Loughborough University in the UK. These students were challenged to work on open source project briefs. Team 1 focused on non-code contributions, while Team 2’s brief was to create a unified documentation experience, giving them a chance to apply their design skills to real-wo

What if you could work on real-world projects, shape cutting-edge technology, collaborate with developers across the world, make a meaningful impact with your design skills, and grow your portfolio… all without applying for an internship or waiting for graduation? That’s what we aim to do with open design: an opportunity for universities

Part 2 of our series on how our team created content for our design website. Get insights, tools, and lessons to help you run your own design sprint.

Part 1 of how we ran a design sprint to refresh our website. Sharing what worked, what didn’t, and lessons from designing for open source in mind.

Why aren’t there more design contributions in open source? Help us find out!