Every Good Open Source Product Starts with Scratching a Shared Itch

Producing Excellent Open Source Products

Me

https://www.adamhyde.net

• NZer (now in SF)
• starter of things including - FLOSS Manuals, Booktype, BookJS, Coko (coFounder), Book Sprints, Cabbage Tree Method and more
• Shuttleworth Fellow
• Ex Artist and stuff

Coko

https://coko.foundation

• Solving scholarly publishing problems with open source
• Building good faith networks
• Building infrastructure eg: PubSweet, INK, Editoria, XSweet

Itch to Scratch

The fact that it is your itch is important

The developer is:

• the use case specialist

• the code specialist

Knowing your itch gives you insights and motivations. It is an important qualitative and experiential factor.

What is it good for?

✓ Infrastructure

✓ Developer Tools

x  User-facing solutions

Why is it failing open source in the 'user space'

...because we are scratching someone else's itch

a developer is

a code specialist

a user is

a use case specialist

Scratching someone else's itch

If we want to 'solve the users problem (itch)' they must be central to designing the solution.

Design First
Design with the User

An Example

The Cabbage Tree Method

https://www.cabbagetree.org

Good for

• Building platforms
• Working with orgs
• Fixing workflows

Facilitated Design

Users Use Case Specialists

Use case Speciaists Designing Their Own Software

Iterative Design→Build Sessions

The Flow

An Example

The Users Scratch

The Summary

The Mock

The Working Code

The Working Code