Episode 72: Eriol Fox on Open Source Design and Sustain

Guest Eriol Fox Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa
Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain!
Today, we welcome regular Sustainer Eriol Fox, the Head of Design
at Open Food Network, who is working on a fully funded PhD at
Newcastle University, and also one of the hosts of Sustained Open
Source Design Podcast. What is a design, and how does design fit
into open source? Eriol tells us their thoughts on programming and
one important thing you need as a user experience designer. Find
out some of Eriol’s favorite toolsets, what Open Food Network is,
and all the other things Eriol thinks about as a community-first
person. Download this episode now to find out much more! [00:01:26]
Eriol tells us what they mean by a Design PR. They also explain
what they mean by design, since there are a lot of opinions on what
design is. [00:04:36] Alyssa asks Eriol what’s the best way to
speak about design and what’s the best way to speak about it
without offending anyone. [00:09:47] Eriol tells us their thoughts
about programming and if it requires an additional level of talent
that just might come natural to some people and not to others.
[00:14:33] Having been involved for over ten years in seeing the
evolution of technologies come about, Eric asks Eriol if they have
any preferences, and if they see the direction of technology
leading to a way where everything is going to become modularized
components. [00:10:06] Justin wonders what Eriol uses day to day
for their tool set and if they only use open source tools. They
mention one of their favorites being Penpot. [00:24:46] Alyssa
wonders how Eriol applies these design guidelines when they think
about map design. They mention checking out a fantastic designer,
Justin Scherer. [00:27:57] Eriol tells us all about Open Food
Network where they currently work. [00:30:20] Eriol tells us what
else they like to do besides what they do now. [00:34:36] Find out
all the places you can find Eriol online. Quotes [00:03:07] “And I
think it does it a disservice to really talk about it as just a UI
uplift ‘cause that really plays into this false narrative that
design is just about making things look better. But what it is also
doing is improving the experience for these users of a backend
system, which is deeply complex.” [00:11:00] “And also I remember I
was so fond of one of the backend developers I worked with in my
first job, but he routinely would ask me what I was coloring in
that day, which is tricky to hear as a designer, especially when
you want to engage with a wider community of developers and people
that do cool stuff with tech.” [00:12:17] “I really do think, and I
know that there are some designers especially that would disagree
with me, but I do think that one of the things that you really
need, one of the only things you really need as a user experience
designer is a curiosity for solving human problems and thinking
about why people do the things that they do.” [00:13:03] “So you
can operationalize a lot of the empathy process as well, so it’s
not something that’s innate skill.” [00:29:15] “I’ve had
conversations recently, as recent as this week, with my team about
how when lots of PR’s get pushed by contributors or paid members of
staff, they actually might be solving Tech Debt, but they might
actually be creating user experience debt (UX Debt), and this was a
very new term for them.” [00:31:02] “To get a bit mushy for a
second, it really gave me the same kind of feelings that I had when
I was really involved in my local community development project. So
that’s why it felt incredibly natural to be part of the open source
community and maybe why it feels like I’ve been around for a long
time.” [00:34:11] “Maybe one day we’ll see as many projects that
are design related in Outreachy and Google Summer of Code, and
maybe even at some point we’ll see a whole scheme which is just for
designers in open source.” Spotlight [00:35:47] Eric’s spotlights
are the Open Source Design website and his 3D printer. [00:37:08]
Justin’s spotlight is a notifier for GitHub browser extension by
Sindre Sorhus. [00:37:47] Alyssa’s spotlight is Open Collective
Open Web Docs. [00:38:28] Eriol’s spotlight is a piece of open
source software called Jamulus. [00:39:45] Richard’s spotlight is
one of his best friends, Simon Vansintjan Links Eriol Does Design
(https://erioldoesdesign.com/) Eriol Fox Twitter
(https://twitter.com/EriolDoesDesign?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Penpot (https://penpot.app/) Justin Scherer Twitter
(https://twitter.com/justinschrr) Open Food Network
(https://openfoodnetwork.net/) Sustain Open Source Design Podcast
(https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/) Sustain Open Source Design
Podcast-Episode 1 (https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/1) FOSS
Backstage (https://foss-backstage.de/) Open Source 101
(https://opensource101.com/speakers/eriol-fox/) Eriol Fox- GitHub
(https://github.com/Erioldoesdesign) Human Rights Centered Design
(https://hrcd.pubpub.org/) Open Source Design
(https://opensourcedesign.net/resources/) Notifier for GitHub
browser extension by Sindre Sorhus
(https://github.com/sindresorhus/notifier-for-github) Open
Collective Open Web Docs (https://opencollective.com/open-web-docs)
Jamulus (https://github.com/jamulussoftware) Credits Produced by
Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr
at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Eriol Fox.