Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?
I really wish I knew how to get great designers...<p>VLC is a product, that is widely used, usable (not the mac version, though), but it is extremely ugly.<p>It is quite hard to get designers to help us (redesigning all the buttons for example) for quite many reasons. The biggest reason is that we don't speak the same language.<p>Many designers don't understand the criticism that usually comes around with each modification in open source project. Many developers don't understand how to speak to designers in a polite way (they think they speak normally, but it isn't perceived as such).<p>Also, many (not all of them) designers don't understand the difficulties of usability, and sometimes mistakes it with "shiny". Usability of a desktop application is way more complex than a website, and the current trend of "removing functionalities" is not always welcomed by developers...<p>However, I don't loose hope :D