GNOME Design: Contribution Guide
Welcome to the GNOME Design Team! We always need more contributors and love to hear from those who are interested in getting involved. Areas where we need help include:
- UI and UX design, for both applications and the operating system
- Visual design, including icons, illustrations and wallpapers
- Usability testing and research
We are happy to hear from experienced designers as well as those who are new to the field. You don't need to think of yourself as a designer to get involved, either: those who feel that they might have a sense for user experience work are encouraged to participate.
How to get involved
The best way to get involved is to join our IRC channel at #gnome-design (on irc.gnome.org). Feel free to introduce yourself and we will point you in the right direction. We are happy to suggest initial tasks for you to work on.
You are also welcome to email Allan Day at aday@gnome.org.
Getting up to speed
If you want to contribute to GNOME design, it is a good idea to familiarise yourself with our existing design work. This includes:
Familiarise yourself with our wiki pages and mockups
Check out our recommended reading, particularly Havoc Pennington's essay on Free Software UI
Read the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
Learning design
GNOME can be a great place to learn how to do design work, and you don't need to be an accomplished designer to get started. If you are new to design work, here is some general advice and tips:
Learn how to do heuristic evaluation.
Find out about usability fundamentals, such as Fitts's Law and grid systems.
- Read software design blogs, including the blogs of GNOME designers
One good tip is to resist the temptation to redesign whole applications or even the whole of GNOME 3! Instead, pick a small user interface (preferences windows are a good place to start) and work to make it better:
Identify usability and design bugs by conducting heuristic evaluation.
- Research solutions to the problems you have found and discuss possible approaches with GNOME designers.
- Draw mockups of the redesigned user interface.
Write up your findings on the wiki. The design whiteboards is a good place to do this.