UI/UX Designers and Free Software – Maiwann

Interview with Maiwann

Walid : welcome, new episode of Projets Libres. Thank you all for listening.

Today, we have an episode that’s going to be very nice, because if you listened to the episode on No-code and free software, at the end, we did some ramblings around design and free software. We certainly told things that could be improved. And following this episode, I tried to deepen the subject and I came across a 2018 MiXiT conference with my guest of the day called Maïtané Lenoir, otherwise known in free software under the pseudonym of Maiwann, so I’ll call him Maiwann for the rest of the interview, and we’re going to talk about design and free software.

So that’s the conference I had seen from her, who told me earlier that it was her first, was called “Design in free software and if we collaborated”. So Maiwann, thank you very much for being here with us tonight to talk about your work. Welcome to the Free Projects podcast.

Maiwann : thank you for inviting me.

Presentation of Maiwann

Walid : The first thing I’m going to ask you is to introduce yourself. Can you explain to us a little bit where you come from and what your background is, please?

Maiwann : So I’m a designer, we say UI or UX designer for UI, User Interface and UX, User Experience. So I do software design, that’s my job. I’m self-employed because I couldn’t stand being an employee.

So I set up a cooperative with friends, but before that I was a freelancer. I work on a whole bunch of software, mostly business software, but sometimes it’s also websites. I work a lot for the public service. And my background is that I studied what is called ” applied arts ” where it’s the same thing as design.

Applied arts, we use that as opposed to plastic arts. Visual Arts is a bit of an artistic version where the artist wants to talk about his vision of the world. And the applied arts are… applied to something, it has to be useful.

And in the applied art part, there is everything that is digital design. So I did a year of upgrading in applied arts, a BTS in graphic design, a professional license in sensory web design, which was a bit of a melting pot of all the digital professions. We even did sound design, well. And then I started working in a company where there were both developers, and ergonomists, and graphic designers. And so very quickly I worked in collaboration with a lot of different trades on somewhat complex software.

And then, as I have employees and it didn’t suit me, I went on my own and since then it’s been the good life of a freelancer.

Walid : ok, when did you cross paths with free software?

Maiwann : ah well, that’s still a part that is important in my presentation as well. So I left the Framasoft association and it was the association that opened me up the most to free software thanks to the conference on the egoogram of the internet that I saw in a totally random way in Toulouse, at a Bazar du Libre. Because the Capitol of the Libre, which is a conference that was organized normally, could not be held because of the attacks. But in reality, in reality, my first connection with the free world was, so it’s unfortunate, it was after the 2015 attack, when I followed a person on Twitter who had said things that were very good compared to the prevailing Islamophobia, which was a term I didn’t know at all. And this person was also saying very political things about digital technology and how GAFAM was not cool and that free software was still the future and I said to myself, but I don’t know at all what this free software thing is and how she says interesting things about Islamophobia, this person. Free software must also be an interesting concept and so I put my finger on it and then it was screwed.

Walid : oh okay ok. I thought you had discovered through your you see your work, the people you met, the developers etc…

Maiwann : Not at all. And no, not at all, I think I was… It allowed me to find a job later, to be in the free software community. I took part in a lot of conferences and I met a lot of people. But in the environment I was in at the beginning, we worked with big bands like Thales and company. So it’s not at all a place where you can be open to the world of free software.

And as a designer, I find that we are even further away than the developers, so it seems even more complicated to me.

Walid : ok, to continue with your presentation, can you before we go into a little more detail after giving us an idea of the projects you worked on as a designer in free software that people might know?

Maiwann : So I work a lot, so I became a volunteer member of Framasoft so I work quite a bit within the association. I have notably, it’s not the design part at all but I did a lot of moderation on Framapiaf. And so it also gives me an angle of analysis of how design choices are made on the different social networks to facilitate moderation. But really as a design, for example there was a redesign of Framalibre recently that I took a lot of sides with.

I also helped with a lot of friends to make a small site called Contribulle.org which is there to connect projects that need skills and people who want to give skills and who want to find projects to help. And finally, before all that, and in a paid way, so as a freelancer, I had worked for Exodus Privacy. And we had redesigned the website and the application.

Walid : Can you remind you just for people who don’t know what Exodus Privacy is?

Maiwann : Yes, Exodus Privacy is a great association that informs people about the trackers that are in their mobile applications. It’s super difficult because mobile applications are legally forbidden to open them to look at the source code. Exodius Privacy with a little trick looks at what goes in and out of the application. And suddenly see what is returned as data when it comes out of the application and allows you to make a list of trackers that are inside.

And so we can realize, like that, that all the weather or press applications, for example, send an incalculable amount of data and it’s really great when we do introductory workshops to the world of free software or digital privacy to use this application because people realize in a very concrete way that “what do you mean my application of the world while I’m subscribed it sends all the his personal data?” Well yes, so now we can start explaining to people that yes, it’s not because we lose a subscription that we don’t send back as much personal data as possible to make twice as much money.

Maiwann’s studies and design schools

Walid : There’s something I also wanted to ask you: so during your studies, what did you actually know about software before you started working with developers on products? Free software? Software at all?

Maiwann : Generally speaking, actually. I did a BTS which was more focused on digital graphic communication and so we learned to do both video and sites. But rather sites that would be promotional or for events or things like that, that had a bit of a strong identity. Or even advertising, which really didn’t make sense when you think about it because we were encouraged to do advertising that was a little participatory, that would fit into your screen and do great things when the formats are so stuck that it’s unattainable.

But hey, well there you go… And so, we didn’t touch the software at all because it was a much more complex angle, I think, in the sense that software… I work with people who do a job thanks to software and so you have to go very deep into the functioning of the job to succeed in improving the software. We didn’t have the opportunity to do that when we were at school, it wasn’t the place.

Walid : Do you know if there are any free software players, for example, who will raise awareness in certain design schools? Do you know if that exists?

Maiwann : As far as I know, it doesn’t exist, so I imagine that it depends exclusively on whether there is a person who is very aware of free software in the design of the training course, or even a teacher who is very aware, there who would bring other people, because in my BTS, there was no such thing as free software.

What, that something doesn’t exist, there’s no reason to call on people to acculturate the entire class. So I think that it remains very anecdotal and really at the goodwill of a person on site, and it also means that when the person leaves, well all the following classes they don’t have any awareness on the subject.

The Role of User-Centered Design in Software Adoption

Walid : Can you explain in a few words what is the role of design in the adoption of one software compared to another in fact?

Maiwann : When I talk about design, I’m actually talking about user-centered design, and so your question is why a design… Finally, what is the role of design…

Walid : User-centered design.

Maiwann : That’s right, no, but it’s the same thing, that’s it. But since the word design means different things to different people, I wanted to clarify.

In fact, if we don’t design by putting the user at the center, it means that we do it from the developer’s perspective, it means that it will be very technical. Or you can do it too depending on what you think you know about the user. And then, suddenly, we have a kind of double filter, which is the technical filter, because it’s the person who codes, who imagines things and then what we think we know about the user, so it gives a second filter. And that, potentially, creates software that is very complex but not in an interesting sense of the word, in a sense of usability that is difficult.

And so right away, the software can become a gas machine, is not interesting for people who want to use it for what they have to do with it and then leave to do something else. And so it has no interest and it limits the level of adoption of the software, at least For me it makes no sense not to do user-centered design systematically. We’ll go into detail later as far as is possible for everyone, which is to say that it’s not the same when it’s a GAFAM as when you’re all alone in your office tinkering with a small piece of software.

Walid : We don’t necessarily have the same means, but we’ll come back to that, I think that even more than a question of means it’s also a question of when you make your software you don’t necessarily think that you could call on someone to help you with these usability issues and, in my opinion, there are a lot of people in free software who don’t know or don’t think about it. Therefore…

Free software with good usability according to Maiwann

Walid : We often hear and I’ve said it a lot also that sometimes you come across free software which is indeed really complicated to get into the interface, it’s complex, it’s not very simple, etc. And in fact, I’d like to turn the question around to say, from your point of view, what are free software that have an interface and that have a good usability in fact?

Maiwann : I find this a difficult question because as it’s user-centered design, depending on the user, according to the profiles, the list of software will be different for each person. Still, to answer, I find that an easy answer is VLC. That is to say, when I was a teenager, I was given a computer from school on which I was happy to be able to watch videos. It was in 2005, I think, if I say no nonsense, eh. And I have the impression that, maybe it wasn’t 2005, maybe it was after, but that very quickly, I used VLC as a video player.

I didn’t need to use the interface actually. I would open my video with VLC, they would play the video and the subject would be settled.

And so a good design is really the moment when you don’t have to ask yourself any questions, neither in terms of the features, nor in relation to the interface, that is to say the right thing works, you have zero questions to ask yourself because you come to do something, you do it, you start from the software, it’s over. That’s what’s really great.

And so then I could, I think that for example with Exodus, we did a good job and the feedback is interesting. For something that would be less… which would have an interface that would not be so elegant but that still does the job well, an example that can be given is Framadate, that is to say that Framadate is the most used tool of all that Framasoft offers, while many will say that the interface is still really dated, old-fashioned, it doesn’t work very well on phone, However, the software is hyper-used.

What for? Because you come, you answer a survey, you leave, it’s over. Obviously, there are a lot of things that can be improved, but in fact, it’s a big part of the job and that’s what we’re asking for.

Walid : put as few brakes as possible on the use of the software.

Maiwann : Absolutely.

Designers in the free software

Walid : If we get into your job a little more, do you have a community in free software? Are there many of you who do this work as you do. Do you speak, do you meet?

Maiwann : That’s not the case and there were times when we met up during the Contribsateliers that were held online. We had several reunions of designers who wanted to do something. But nothing has ever been structured, because structuring, animating a collective requires a lot of energy and so for the moment it doesn’t exist. Some of them, we know each other by sight. We know that each other… As we know designers from afar, we know which ones have contributed to something or not, which ones have similar sensibilities, which ones don’t care. But nothing more structured than that.

Walid : Are you a lot or is it still a very small minority?

Maiwann : I don’t have the impression that there is a big wave of designers.

I think that if there was ever a community of free software designers, I would know about it. Given the visibility that Framasoft gives me, the way I’m currently experiencing it over the last few years is that I talk a lot about design and that I’m quite visible in the world of free software, and so there are a lot of people who write to me personally to ask me for help. And I don’t have a place to redispatch them to because I’m not available to lend a hand on all the French-speaking free projects.

It’s not very satisfactory I would say, but that’s the current state.

Walid : We’re going to come back to this because I have someone on one of my articles who just put a comment on me saying “I’m a designer, but how do I find a software to contribute to?” And I think that the opposite, which is “I’m a free project, I need a designer to help us”, there’s certainly something to be done in this since in the end it seems to be a problem in both directions.

Maiwann : Absolutely. For the moment, there is an answer to that, which is to take a look at Contribulle or to post a classified ad on Contribulle. It’s not super specific and I’m not sure it’s completely suitable for the design. I think we’ll go into more detail later because in my opinion, it’s a meeting of design. It’s hard to just make a small announcement and say “come on, go ahead, let’s go”.

It’s still a tool that is available and that can allow a first contact and it’s better than before, it’s better than before than when we didn’t have it.

The lack of designers in free software

Walid : yes, precisely, I wanted to ask you if you had often encountered, from the moment you entered the world of free software, this lack of designers. Is this something that you have been told about or do people not even realize that there is a lack of designers?

Maiwann : Well, both.

That is to say that you are right, there is what I would characterize as a lack of design culture within free software. It’s quite easy to explain by the fact that design is interpreted as manipulation and it’s very linked in the imagination to everything GAFAM does. That is to say, how do I attract people, I keep them, I make them do things that suit me because it allows me to capture their data, things like that. And so it’s already a great repellent for a lot of free software developers who are completely the opposite of these values. And so who say, that’s not our way of proceeding, and so we don’t want designers.

There’s the even more extreme guts of that which is, in my opinion, downright problematic, which is to say, a software, people have to struggle to get into it and have a margin of learning to learn. In fact, it’s important that users learn how to use software and therefore spend some time and energy on it. And if they don’t have that time and energy to spend, then too bad for them. In fact, they don’t deserve my software, they didn’t put enough energy, something like that.

I think that’s a way of doing things that is a bit haughty, because there are people who don’t have the time and it’s not because these people don’t have the time that they should be excluded. It also doesn’t mean that because we’re going to do something that’s easy to use, we’re going to hide things from them, or we’re going to prevent them from learning if they ever want to do it. You have to manage to balance between these different criteria not to succeed in making it simple, not to hide things too much behind a kind of artistic blur that makes people, they click on three buttons, it does what they want, but in reality we made a lot of decisions for them, and at the same time not make the thing too complex.

So that’s the opposition that there can be, or automatically people tell us no, but design in the world of free software we don’t want it. Once you’ve passed that first step and people say well, user-centered design is not bad, I’d like to do that. This is another part of the lack of design culture, it’s that we don’t know how to work with designers.

And so we have to go back to how free software projects are born, often it’s a developer in his corner who has a problem, who puts together a small piece of software that will respond to his problem, and then the software grows because it solves the problem of other people, often who look like the developer because they have the same problems as him. And then right away the thing gets bigger, and at some point, it would still be nice to have someone who knows a little about it to make it more ergonomic, who sticks his nose in it. The problem is that the software was made by a person. There is a bit of a notion of paternity, it’s the person’s baby. And you have to succeed, which is really really difficult, in decentring yourself and no longer making it your project, but a project for the users. It’s really very complicated.

Often there are people who think they are ready to make this move, who have feedback from a designer and who say “But wait, we’re going to have to change everything, it’s really too much work, it’s not an option, I’m going to stay in what I’m doing. So here, the designer working for nothing, it’s still a bit annoying. Sometimes, it happens much faster, in fact, you start to want to touch two or three things and then the person systematically counter-argues. And then, we say, well, in fact, if you ever do the software, you don’t do it for the users, but you do it according to what you think is good, the designer’s expertise is not recognized and in these cases, it’s complicated.

So all this is a lot of work, questioning, managing to take a step back, managing to work in a team with someone when you were before potentially alone on your project or at least with other developers on the project. It’s still a set of culture changes that is potentially monumental and voluntary because the person has probably been a volunteer on his project forever and so if there is ever someone who arrives and says “well we should change this this that” so that it is more usable, it reimburses a monumental amount of work, Not paid, it’s understandable that people are lazy, quite simply, they’re not ready.

The difficulties of the beginning in free software

Walid : Yes, and since these design issues are not taught in computer science schools, you are not aware from the start, and so in fact, it’s not that it falls on it, but when it happens to you, you as a developer, I think you have no idea how to react to it. It’s not necessarily very easy both for the developer who sees someone coming and for you especially who arrives in there. Is this something you confronted as soon as you arrived in free software?

Maiwann : yes and also it was related to the fact that I was younger and more inexperienced actually. I arrived and I said to myself I’m going to propose some things and then it’s going to match and so the changes will be able to be integrated.

And I had the technical vision of the problem and obviously in fact the human dimension, it is completely structuring on this and that’s why now, when I when there are people who are designers and I come across things like that in conferences and who say how I could lend a hand, I systematically say “first you have to find a group, a collective or just a person with whom it matches with whom you say to well, we could work together” and everything and that the person in front of him is super receptive and he is really demanding.

Because if you come in and you propose things and it comes out of nowhere, your intention is the best in the world, but in fact people already have 150 issues to deal with, they don’t particularly want a designer, it’s useless. So yes, I agree with you.

Especially because in fact I imagine that in schools, often computer engineers, engineers are trained to have an answer to everything, and in particular to design. And so, at no time do we say to ourselves that we will have to create multi-skilled teams to succeed in meeting users and then succeed in designing things appropriately, that doesn’t exist.

But what I’ve seen in particular when working with people from Framasoft, which I find really brilliant in terms of empathy, in terms of wanting to look for what would be most useful for users or things like that. I’m thinking in particular of Marien who is currently making a monitoring tool called Flus, with whom I work, and who really cares about designing, centering users, but who is also the developer. Well, in fact, he sometimes can’t get away from a technical aspect to find a solution. And it’s while talking to him for half an hour, an hour sometimes, where as I don’t have the technical vision at all, I don’t have all the constraints in mind, so I really talk about it from a user-centric point of view by offering him solutions, it makes him change his camera angle and immediately he says “oh yes but if I did it like that, It’s true that in fact it works.”

And so that’s why I say without any pretense of being better than the others, but just already you have, as a developer, you have enough things in mind to succeed in designing user-centric, it’s too much and you’re biased by all the technical constraints that you have to manage which are already a monumental job.

Walid : I also have the impression, I’ll make a little aside, I know that for example on some of the productivity software I use, so rather young software, which is barely 2-3 years old, they have copied a lot of what worked on proprietary software. I always take this example because for me it was a bit of a revelation. It’s Notion, with the slash bar, slash command (/), etc. There are quite a few of these new free software that actually have exactly the same design, etc. Because in the end, it works well. So, they didn’t start like a developer who thinks “Well, well, I’m doing my thing on my own in my corner, etc.”

Maiwann : Yes, absolutely. And then, it’s true that compared to 10 or 15 years ago, the offer of software is multiplying. When you’re a designer, often, you can invent things, but often, what you’re trying to do is match a problem with multiple criteria and you’re looking for the best solution for that problem. Often, there are people who have already invented a solution that pretty much does the job, so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

But on the other hand, it is to succeed in doing this research, to list the problems to be answered, so to have a bit of a 360° vision on the subject, and then to look for what are all the solutions and to what extent they are adequate to solve the problem or not, what new problems they create, As a new side effect, is it possible to limit these side effects, things like that.

And then after a while you find either something that matches perfectly, or something that matches more or less, or something that maybe matches but you’re not sure. And my best answer at that time, I say systematically, we do this, we make the solution for example technically which is the simplest on a set of choices that seems more or less equivalent and we test. And I always say and we test. That is to say, we set up as quickly as possible and then we will see the reaction of the users. If it does the job it’s good, if it makes a lot of rotten side effects, we try one of the other solutions that won’t create these side effects. And we will have already advanced in our knowledge of the problem and when we use such a solution, what does it generate as a positive thing and as a negative thing. So you’re right, in fact, we’re not reinventing the wheel, it already exists, we don’t have time to reinvent the wheel.

That’s something, for me, that really pulls more on the side, I was talking about visual art earlier, more of someone who wants to do a little creation, who has a little fun. I’m not here for that, I’m here to take naps.

So if there’s ever a more efficient thing that saves me time, I save time and I’ll take a nap, it suits me better.

Walid : Apart from Framasoft, and so I understand Exodus, the projects where it works well are projects where you physically meet people, or does it change nothing and with the tools we have now, it doesn’t pose any particular problems?

Maiwann : I work almost exclusively remotely, it’s not a problem for me. And for example Contribulle, we were a small group of four, there is one person that I still haven’t met and there are two others that I had met just once or twice in conferences and we had never worked together and it worked well. So I think it’s not necessarily necessary. On the other hand, indeed, there is a kind of culture of communication, of listening, of really trying to understand what the other person wants to tell you.

And then we’re really in all the communication, recapitulating what the other person said to check if you understood correctly. In terms of posture, I would call it low enough to succeed in getting in touch with the other person and not to explain life to them, which is super important. And that’s true that there are people for whom the virtual creates distance and so seeing each other in person is easier. It’s not the case for everyone and really it’s the time when it depends on the people you meet and it depends on the types of people and it’s difficult.

I’m a girl who is quite young, just that already, well in fact it makes me… Well, I don’t have the word. So what?

Walid : Does it put you in a position of weakness compared to others or…?

Maiwann : yes that’s right, in fact I’m not considered at the same level as if I were a 50-year-old white guy. And so when I bring my feedback and say well I should change that and if because… There are postures that are to say “oh yes, okay, ok” or “Oh okay, it’s going to be complicated, do you think we can do it more like this or more like that?” or higher postures that will be “No, but in fact, it’s not going to be possible, you don’t understand anything.” You can’t kill the patriarchy by making free software in a second, that’s not how it works.

We all have biases, it depends on how we work.

Walid : There are still frustrations when you arrive in this environment and you try to change things and you realize that in fact it’s going to be really complicated. That’s a lot of diplomacy and pedagogy, isn’t it?

Maiwann : not anymore, I don’t work like that anyway, that is to say if people don’t want to work with me, well they have better things to do and I have better things to do than we waste our time trying to do things together and then not succeed. So no no, now it’s… If people are very, very enthusiastic to have a hand, it can be with pleasure if I have the time and energy, otherwise everyone continues as they did and then it’s ok.

And once again this is the advice I give to new designers who are coming up because otherwise the effort made to realize that nothing is going to be done, it is too big and it is completely depressing and then in addition it can really break the energies of designers who come to contribute to free software, who hit a wall and then leave saying “well in fact the librists are really too stupid, that doesn’t work”.

And I still have a lot of hope in a kind of… I don’t know, it’s a new generation, it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but there’s a bit of something like that. I see fairly young free software players, people who are building free software and for whom inclusion is instantly very important. It involves a lot of different ways of doing things, and in particular by saying, do user-centered design, it’s a priority, how can we do it? And when that’s the process, right away, it’s much easier to insert yourself to say, I can give a hand on what do you need help with.

Do monitoring?

Walid : how do you keep up with the trends and what’s going on, etc.? What are you…

Maiwann : in design?

Walid : In design, yes.

Maiwann : Well more now, I used to do it a lot when I was younger to follow a lot of trends but rather graphic of what was being done in terms of graphics. I admit that now, maybe because I do more business software, the graphic identity is less important. So that’s one part of the answer, another part of the answer is I do it all the time the day before, indeed.

That is to say, every software that I open, every site that I visit, every interface that I am confronted with in the street, and then not even interfaces in fact because user-centered design is to see how you manage to direct people or capture their attention in one way or another, Or what makes this door handle easy to use or not. And how do I understand that I have to push the door and not pull it? or that’s it.

That’s how the human brain works, and so I spend my time observing people. And really, it’s a part of my job that I love, it’s because… Part of my job is to understand how people work, since I make business software, and then adapt the software to them. And so, you have to understand all the things that are outside of digital, and that’s great conversation with people, because they love to talk about their work, and so that’s really great for us to talk about and also because that, I go beyond the subject but it allows people to talk about all the expertise they have and that they don’t realize that they have.

So it values each person, that really to make a link is really great. And so then to succeed in telling them I’m going to make a tool adapted to your needs, at first people don’t believe it at all because they’re so used to having crappy computer tools that they assume that it’s not going to be possible.

And when you really do things that are exactly where they need to be in their job rather than something that hinders them or asks them to give guarantees, to point out I don’t know what, it’s really happiness and it creates a great bond because you equip people.

That’s it, well, that was the small part, my job is great, becoming a designer is really good.

Walid : It reminds me, I don’t know, I once heard someone in a conference, I don’t know what he was saying, I don’t understand why at home I can have really good, very beautiful tools, etc. And why at work, I’m forgotten, well why shouldn’t I have the right at work to have super beautiful, super good tools, etc. what?

Maiwann : Well, the answer is that when you’re at work, you’re subordinate to people who decide for you and who are far from your job. Or even often who do not know it to the limit and who by reflex, since you have acquired expertise that is very integrated, you have very difficulty valuing it and therefore your managers do not realize it.

And so, they don’t see either, that’s my job, they also don’t see how the software you have wastes your time or constrains you and therefore how you will be more efficient with another tool. I did a master’s degree in ergonomics in evening classes, so in occupational health, and we’re used to it, we’re trained to put a figure on all that. Very concretely to say, well yes, the person in fact, every day, he loses so many minutes doing this and that action because of the software he could, it’s time that he could save, it’s time that adds pain, so people who go on sick leave, in particular it’s because the software is super painful, There you go.

And then we, with these figures, we go to the bosses and tell them, “Look, you’re wasting so much time, you have so many sick leaves, people are struggling to do something that’s more interesting, to talk to people because they’re doing rotten administration.”

And so, for all these reasons, we encourage you to, in particular to change software or to make a custom software, things like that. But what happens most of the time is that there is no ergonomist and the bosses, managers, etc., they have to decide for their subordinates what software is going to be taken. They make a decision and then there is never an audit that is done to check what… Is it good, should we do better, should we do things differently?

And everyone understands the fact that we are all very dispossessed of the fact that we can improve our work tool, our digital tool. It’s something that is very politically linked to the fact that the designers of digital tools, especially engineers, are very happy to keep power by saying “Oh no, but that’s how it is, we thought for you how to do it, let us do it, we’re the ones who know technically how we do things.”

So no one thinks it’s possible to reappropriate their work tool, that’s one of the things that’s great about free software. And so, in the professional world even more, to think that you can adapt a business software to your work, it’s super complicated. That said, it’s true that it’s potentially expensive. So you have to manage to balance between one and the other. In my way of working, which we would call agile or iterative, we try to do very small things that give great added value to users. And so it doesn’t cost that much to do 80% of the work that improves the lives of workers.

Walid : Yes, I wanted to act. There is, in fact, a whole new field in which there is some free software. There are a lot of owners of some free software, which is the domain of what is called No-code and Low-code, where in fact, basically, in fact, new platforms, new software that allows business users to make their own software. So, in fact, to take back power. And actually, people feel like superheroes because they can design.

Well, that also poses other problems, but they can also design or they can take this software and say “Look, this is what I want, I want something like this. Look, I didn’t make you a paper model or wireframes, I made you something that works, look, that’s what I want. And that’s really interesting because you can give back to users the power to create or at least to co-construct with users.

And I find it super interesting because people are hyper motorized to be able to do it themselves in fact and not suffer the fact that oh yes but wait, I asked you but you told me it’s too complicated we’re not going to do it. And there are some free software on this and for people who are interested, I invite you to listen to the episode on No-code and free software. End of parenthesis.

So there’s also something that you touched on in the conference I listened to in 2018 and that I found two things that I found quite symptomatic.

PR Welcome

Walid : The first is when you arrive and you show up and you want to do something and they say “PR welcome”. PR, i.e. pull request, so for people who don’t know, it’s that you have the right to take the code and send changes for review and integration. So I would like you to say a few words about that because for me, it’s completely symptomatic.

Maiwann : So already, in the world of designers, there is no software forge. So it’s a way to welcome the person by saying “hello, use my tool and with it” because potentially the designers don’t even know what it means… A PR what… So that’s complicated.

It also shows a lack of total knowledge of how a design process works. In fact, issues work for commenting on code, to signify a bug, to signify a problem and everything. But when we talk about design and therefore really something more meta where we have to take a step back and say in fact what do we want to do, who we want to address, who our users are and what are the needs, what features we want to highlight, what are the user’s journey so that they can succeed towards what they want, which is not the way out, it’s not at all adapted well the PR so even worse the PR you have to propose code so there really…

We believe that designers know how to code, which is the case for some of them, but which is absolutely not the majority because it’s another job. But as there are even some it would be issue welcome, in fact it’s not suitable. What is needed and what is complicated is that you have to discuss to make design. We have to discuss to explain what the project is, what is the purpose of the software, what is its objective, what it wants to highlight, who its users are. And from there, normally the designer goes to the users and then he comes back and he proposes changes.

At the end of the day, he doesn’t go to see the designers because already… He doesn’t go to see the users at the limit because he already realizes the basic ergonomics problems that there are on the software and so he can propose things.

In addition, realize if we ever say ah well we have to change the color of this button then we have to shift it three pixels to the right and then we would have to put it bigger and that more… But it takes a while, but on the way out, but infinite, no one wants to do that, it’s really too lousy.

And then otherwise it would mean fucking up models, fucking screenshots, models on an exit, but that too in terms of communication, it’s rubbish. Do you, as a developer, say to you “Ok, I made these mockups, thank you for integrating them, hello, kisses”. It’s not working.

And even worse, I don’t do that anymore, I don’t spin demos without being with the people to present them because everyone interprets different things from the demos. That is to say, in an extraordinary way, we create a button, we say to ourselves, oh well, this button obviously leads to this page and people imagine that the button is flashing, it leads to things, it triggers a pop-up, things that we wouldn’t have imagined that can be good ideas sometimes.

But so you absolutely have to communicate orally or you have to be really very good at writing, but it still seems really borderline to me.

Designers’ tools vs. developers’ tools

Walid : That brings me to the second thing you talk about in this lecture, which is exactly that, is also the difference in the tools you use, the tools you’re trained on, versus the tools that are used by developers. And you cite the case of “I want to do design, I use proprietary software” and so inevitably developers send you to the dump because you use proprietary software.

Maiwann : Yes, then…

Walid : Maybe it wasn’t exactly how you said it, but that’s how I remembered it at the time.

Maiwann : That’s exactly it. So, you have to see that even then, since the 2018 conference, in six years, there are things that have improved in terms of collaboration, because I’m not very old. I started making my mockups in Photoshop. Suffice to say that Photoshop was not suitable.

It’s not even vector. So, that was the plague. We couldn’t do multi-screen. So, we had one file per screen. Anyway, I look like a dinosaur when I tell you this but I’m 30 years old so it’s really not that far away.

Now we still have tools that allow collaboration and that allow us to make models and send the models with a vision link to people who don’t have to have an account on the tool.

So already it’s much better than before. And even now there is a free tool that does a great job called Penpot and which is in my opinion a revolution in terms of open source design tools. Because otherwise there is nothing that existed that did the job for a while, or a little. And the Penpot is a tool made by a great team that does great user-centered design and I’m quite surprised at the level they reach in such a few years.

Otherwise, frankly, it changes every two or three years the design software that is at the top of the pile. At the moment it’s more like Figma. Figma which changes its economic model every two years and so it’s more or less difficult but which suddenly allows you to make your mock-ups and then send a link to no one and manage to discuss on the same basis. It’s still nicer and much easier than before.

Walid : By working in free software, did you change the tools you used to work?

Maiwann : Yes, absolutely, because… But that’s more on a political or ethical side, which is to say that it really annoys me to be locked up with software. You have to see that the Adobe suite, before, you could buy licenses for a version of the software, now, it’s only monthly. And so, suddenly, it means that I put my .PSD, if I ever stop paying for the license, I can no longer use them.

So, in terms of keeping your work tool, it’s still completely scandalous. So I already find that it’s a hold-up and it’s disgusting so I tried to avoid that.

There is also that in my way of working, I now do much less mock-ups and I almost only do it with the developers. So that means that what we often do is that the developers tell them “you make a disgusting first version of the interface, the fastest thing you can do and everything”, and in a second step, together, you will share your screen and I will tell you exactly what we were saying earlier. “Ah the button, so now you put a border of 3 pixels, you put it in blue, you put the background like this, ah well you put bigger, you put smaller, you put more margin”, things like that.

The advantages that it has is that it avoids me making a model completely above ground technical constraints and then giving it to the developer that the developer feels like he is integrating it cleanly but in reality there will be a lot of things that won’t work and so you’ll have to go back and forth, It’s going to be super lousy.

And in addition the peer design takes a little time because the time for the person to code the changes you just asked him is a bit… I spend a little time looking at my computer doing nothing. But on the other hand, once it’s done, it’s done, that is to say that once it’s done, for the time being, the developer sends the PR and in brooms it’s weighed, there’s no need to go back on it.

And so it allows me to make a lot less mockups and not mockups that are very polished, pixel-perfect, things like that. It also allows you to test the responsives live, so it’s great.

That’s it, and so maybe Penpot wouldn’t suit everyone and there are designers who would like to do quite specific things for whom it doesn’t do the job right now. I’m really wanting to have a tool that borders on making schematics, even schematics by hand to show developers pretty much what I want. And I tell him you do something ugly, then we’ll do better.

Frankly it does the job really well and I forgot your initial question…

Walid : Did you change the tools you used when you entered free software? Did you use proprietary tools before and now you use free tools? Do you still use certain proprietary tools? How do you actually work?

Maiwann : I use free software as much as possible, but that’s also because frankly by having a Framasoft hat and by being immersed in a plurality of free software, I often find what I’m looking for. So I have no reason to go to the owner.

In political terms too, it makes more sense. After all, as long as I don’t feel stuck by the owner, I’m not completely sectarian. That is to say, for example, I have a Macbook that I bought during my design studies and that has been running since 2012. I think I’m more of an environmentalist than a freelancer and so it still runs on macOS and I have no reason to move away from it because the fact that it’s on macOS doesn’t bother me.

But indeed I have switched almost everything and I switch as soon as possible because there really it is more in political terms. That is to say that the GAFAM and the somewhat global political situation of increasing surveillance and things like that is getting so hard, that it’s difficult to say to yourself I’m using a proprietary tool and then it’s not a big deal. There is always a little ulterior motive that says that even the data is captured and that at some point it could fall on the corner of our faces.

Recognition of Maiwann’s work

Walid : We talked a little bit about it earlier, how the contributions of designers are perceived and valued, we talked about it a little. I wanted to know what recognition you get from this in fact? How do projects make you look good and make you want to continue working with them?

Maiwann : after a collaboration that works well, it’s good, it’s not only in design, it’s always super rewarding and I find that what’s even more rewarding in free software is that it’s the common good part, that is to say that you feel like you’re contributing to something that is beyond you, so that’s really nice. And if I go back to my contribution to Exodus, which is a contribution that was paid in addition, then really it was great from the association.

Then, when in the workshop I use Exodus and they say “oh well, the application is great, it’s really easy to use”, while I know that we didn’t say that before we worked together, it’s really in terms of personal valorization, it’s great.

Another effect that is potentially very rewarding for the ego, even if completely problematic in more global terms, is that when we talk about design in free software, it’s often me who is mentioned. It’s rewarding for a while, it’s nice, and then in fact it’s completely problematic because what is needed is to be able to address a collective.

But it’s true that it has this great advantage… And it brings me work. This is to say that I meet a lot of people in the free software world who don’t have a design culture at all and who at some point in their professional life have a project and think that it would be good to be able to talk with users, that they turn to me because they found me nice in another context and for a professional context they think it would be nice to work with me too.

Walid : having a collective, being able to exchange etc is still something good but you sometimes have to… Have you ever gone to give conferences in schools, in design schools for example? To explain a little about your work or not?

Maiwann : Well, it never happened to me, no. After my work as such… In fact, it doesn’t happen much.

I have the impression that I have given lectures in computer engineering schools for Framasoft to talk about free software, but when I am asked to speak about design, my way of doing design, either on the business software side, cooperation with users, or on the free software side, I don’t think it has happened to me at all.

And I think it’s a great shame, but in my opinion it also shows a lack of porosity… In between, I think that there aren’t that many design schools actually. They are often private, they are often far from the IT world. They affect more in circles that would be on the communication or artistic side. So it’s not my environment and these people don’t know me. Much less than… I think I’m… Finally, I, via framasoft, because in reality the fact that I’m known is a lot like Viaframasoft, is much more known, recognized in computer engineering schools than in everything that is in the design world and everything, it’s not the same world at all.

Myth: no designers in the free software sector because there is no money?

Walid : You touched on a subject that I wanted us to talk about a little bit too. You said in fact I have work, the fact that I’m a bit alone means that I have work. From a distance, I had an idea that is perhaps very wrong, which is to say that there is no designer in free software also because there is not necessarily money. Which means that we don’t necessarily have money to pay people to work on these subjects in fact. Is it rather something that is false? Is it incomplete? Anyway, what do you think of this…

Maiwann : yes, yes, I think it’s true and false. That is to say, sociologically, developers are better and better annoyed than designers because suddenly, the prestige of developers is not at all the same as that of designers who are rather considered as “yes, well, you do your communication and your drawings there, you are nice but you are more associated with artists than technicians”.

Whereas on the computer engineering side, you are more associated with engineers than technicians, so it’s not the same thing. And so, indeed, there is more need for money for designers than for developers. If I really do a lot of money, that’s it. The world of designers needs more money than the world of developers.

Also, it’s a more feminine profession, design than development. So it’s the same, in terms of money, you’re paid less so it’s cooler to have money. That said, sometimes it’s a point that is opposite, but in a rather austere or even obnoxious way, saying yes, but anyway the designers don’t want to contribute because there is no money.

Implicitly, anyway, this world of marketers who are only there to manipulate people and to make a big buck, if we don’t give them 10,000 bucks to help us on a project, they will never help it. Well, there are people who work in associations, among designers, there are like everyone else. And so, I really believe that there is…

Walid : An unawareness in fact.

Maiwann : Yes, a huge lack of culture. Really, I think that’s the fundamental thing.

That is to say, in the BTS, at the end of the BTS, you have an end-of-year project to do. And so, we have to find a real structure or a real project to be able to spend time on, often, it’s building a graphic identity, doing a kind of communication campaign, things like that. We all struggled to find people. I did it for a person who was intermittent in the show, who was a storyteller. There are others who have canvassed cafés, well, things like that.

But people who didn’t potentially really need something, but who said to themselves, well, it’s going to be nice, we’re going to have a free communication campaign, he’s going to do his end-of-year project, that’s it.

But there are plenty of free software projects that need a graphic identity. At no time did anyone tell us, neither the teachers nor us, that there was a whole digital world that was ready to have student contributions, but hey, we’re still better than developers who have never touched a mock-up tool in their lives to lend a hand. It didn’t exist.

So I think that’s the biggest thing… I don’t want to take away the remuneration aspect because it’s still … We’re in a capitalist world, having money at the end of the month is still nice. But we’re not just motivated by money, just if the world of free software doesn’t exist, and what’s more, it’s not welcoming, obviously designers won’t spontaneously say to themselves “well tonight I have nothing to do between watching a series and going to fry myself with free software who don’t want me and with software that I don’t even know the difference between free software and Proprietary software, inevitably people won’t come to the free world. This is normal.

Walid : But with all that, so we talked a little bit about Exodus, but do you have any examples of open source projects that managed to integrate designers where it went really well?

Maiwann : No, I find it difficult to say because I’m not in everyone’s back room to realize how they work with designers and since the community isn’t well built, well we don’t have too much feedback between us of “Ah, so-and-so contributed with so-and-so software and then it worked really well” and then I also have people close to me who have software marauding that they find super well designed and so I should cite an example. I am often cited as an example as a great software very well designed while it is very technical but I don’t use it at all so in fact I can’t realize.

So it’s really hard to say and then what I can say is that every time I say that I said “it would be good to bring more design into free software” when there are people who have asked me answers, they have asked me answers like “but there is Framasoft that is already working with designers”. And I was there in fashion, yes, so I’m in the association, I know that we worked with Marie-Cécile Paccard and there with a cooperative of designers who are in Lyon and who are called the cooperative of the internets, I think, something like that. Who helps us on Peertube also at Framasoft.

We’re tired of Framasoft leading the way, we have to follow in fact. So Framasoft doing things well first is good. Now, just because Framasoft does it doesn’t mean that we can say that the free software world does it. That’s not right.

Recommendations for designers entering the free software world

Walid : You talked a little bit about it earlier, but what recommendations would you make to designers who want to contribute, who would arrive in the world of free software? What would be your recommendations?

Maiwann : I think we have to be able to warn them about the fact that the culture of design is not at all developed and that we are in a potentially voluntary context, which changes the game a lot in terms of the desire to do things and integrate them. And so you really have to succeed in finding people with whom it matches, who want to do things. And ideally, a fairly small perimeter to start the collaboration so as not to throw ourselves into a wholehearted overhaul that may never be integrated because that’s really the risk.

And that if you ever have enough energy and enough background, the ideal is to succeed in getting the developers on board to show them that in fact it’s super nice to meet the users.

I already did a workshop at the JDLL one year that was user testing. There was a person at the end who told me “oh my, it’s incredible, I’ve been developing my software for ten years, I’ve never sat next to a user to see him use it”. That’s not possible! And so it’s incredible, it means that we have a huge margin of maneuver. That’s also the feedback I got on Exodus Privacy because one of the first questions I asked was “Ok you want to improve usability, but who are your users”?

And I was told that our users are the general public. And my answer was “the general public doesn’t exist, we have to be more precise”. And so there we start to weave a link between the software designer, the developers and their users. And then if we ever manage to either get them to meet, or it doesn’t matter because the designer is there to report the users’ words. And so to say, we wanted to focus on this feature, well here’s how it’s used by this person or this and that category of population and so here’s how we could do better to make it easier, it’s starting to create a link and that would be super nice.

Because in reality, we always go back to that, that’s why we make tools, it’s to be useful to people or to be recognized, so we always talk about making connections and why do we want to make tools easier to use, there too it’s to make connections so if we manage to finish the weaving or the star like that by getting people on board it’s great.

Otherwise the risk is to be disappointed on one side and the other and not want to get wet again and it would still be a great shame to lose great energy because we lack too much.

Conclusion

Walid : We’ve already been talking for an hour, it’s going by quickly. We’re coming to the end and in conclusion, before giving you the floor for an op-ed, I would like to ask you two short questions that are roughly what you said, but I would like you to give you one or two sentences on that.

What would you say to a designer who doesn’t know free software to make him want to join communities of free software artists?

Maiwann : I would say that what’s great is like doing associative work but with your professional skills and so that’s really too nice and in a field that is sorely lacking in designers and therefore where you can have a crazy added value because I will repeat that these are people who have never met their users who don’t know what a user test is, who potentially have no notion of ergonomics with a software that has been built as it goes along as it seems good to them. And therefore that the added value to be brought is enormous on the one hand. and in addition as it is for the common good it is something that potentially exceeds you… that allows you to put your skills at the service of something that is not commercial and just that in political terms or a positive horizon is really too nice.

Walid : And what would you say to a free software developer to introduce him to the job of designer. It’s not easy.

Maiwann : No, it’s not easy. And then me, the people who come to talk to me so that I can work with them, obviously they still don’t understand what I do. However, they want to work with me. So there’s a kind of mystery around it. Because when we start working together, they say it’s really great to work with you, but I had no idea that this was what you were doing. So I tell myself that really, I’m not very good at this game.

Well, in fact, I could say that the idea is that when you develop software, your brain is already so buried in the technique that it’s very difficult to make something easy to use and that there are people whose job it is and for whom it’s easy to go and meet users, to go and succeed in saying “this is easy to do, this is not easy to use, we can improve this way and that” and so it relieves you of a big difficulty when you try to have both feet in two different boats. That’s it, it allows you to guide your own boat and to have someone next door who also canoes and kayaks to accompany you and to make the link with the users.

It removes a big thorn in the side and it’s interesting if we ever start to struggle with user feedback where we are told about usability problems but that we never know how to solve because it’s not our area of expertise.

Walid : I really feel like from everything I hear, that there is a huge lack of knowledge in the free world of the whole design part.

Maiwann : We could tell developers that it’s true that the best time to bring in a designer was the first best time, it was at the beginning of the project and the second best time is now when you think about it. And that’s ok. And the designer is also there to accompany you if you are a little lost.

The important thing is really the posture. You’re not supposed to know how to guide him exactly, that’s what he’s there for, but on the other hand to manage to get in touch with him to succeed in making a better software, that’s really what’s great.

Op-Ed

Walid : Cool. Well listen, before we leave, it’s the open forum. I’ll let you speak, if you want to pass on a message to the listeners of Projets Libres!

Maiwann : Well, I’m not going to talk about design at all, but I’m still going to talk about making connections and care. I think that at the moment and lately, it’s really difficult to do projects that are a little out of the box and I think that free software is a little out of the box. And that it’s important that each and every one of you takes the time to do things that make you happy, or make you feel good, or do good around you, take care of yourself, take care of others, it’s really nice.

It works for free software, it works for your loved ones, it works to take a step back and to stop having your head in the handlebars. And so I’d like to, if we can ever take a little breathing space to catch our breath, because I think we’re in a bit of a grueling race, where we have few victories and few reasons to resolve ourselves with a kind of big steamroller in many circles and especially in free software where the GAFAM don’t take a break to give us a not very quiet.

Neither does the political environment in relation to generalized surveillance. So do something that makes you feel good, bake cakes or bring cakes to others, to people who make free software that you like, send them some love, make small donations, it’s a pleasure, send them a message of love on social networks telling them that what they’re doing is really cool and it made them happy.

If you listen to the podcast, send a little message to say “Oh my, I really liked this podcast, it was cool!” There you go, sharing gratitude and love, or just baking cakes, or just taking naps. It’s really cool. There you go!

Walid : That’s great, send me some cakes and send me messages to let me know it’s cool and that you enjoy the podcast. It suits me very well too, it gives motivation, it’s great! Thank you very much Maiwann for your time. I’m delighted to have been able to talk to you, because it’s a subject that I don’t know very well, but that I know is extremely important.

So, I hope that the listeners of Projets Libres!, they have learned a little more and that it will make them want to dig deeper into this subject. And I hope that we can talk again at another time to talk about design, to talk about free software, about Framasoft, I don’t know, in the future.

Maiwann : to set up his cooperative so that it is no longer subordinate to the workplace.

Walid : That’s it. With great pleasure. Super. Well listen, thank you very much, see you soon and then for the listeners, as usual, send me messages, try to share on social networks and you can reach me on Mastodon, all the information is on the website, Follow the podcast section. There you go, see you soon, thank you Maiwann!

Maiwann : thank you!

This episode was recorded on July 9, 2024.

License

This podcast is released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license or later.