Designers, how do we get you guys to contribute to open source projects?
I really wish I knew how to get great designers...VLC is a product, that is widely used, usable (not the mac version, though), but it is extremely ugly.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.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).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...However, I don't loose hope :D