TaskJuggler – A Free and Open Source Project Management Software

Re:TaskJuggler – A Free and Open Source Project Management S... by haswell on Thursday September 30, 2021 @03:07PM (#28710031)

Many open source projects started as passion projects. Someone had a problem they wanted to solve, so they solved it for themselves or for their team. The products weren’t designed based on a need to sell to a wide audience, or to attract a particular kind of buyer, they just need to work and work well.

Function is often more important than form when these projects are born.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that a pretty UI should not be confused for good UX. We can make snap judgments by looking at screenshots that look a little old school, but if the UX is good, the rest is just eye candy.

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Re:TaskJuggler – A Free and Open Source Project Management S... by solarkraft on Thursday September 30, 2021 @03:24PM (#28710244)

I agree that UI and UX are different things. A beautiful to look at UI can have horrendous UX.

But I’m less sure about the reverse. I’d argue that a bad looking UI can scare or otherwise put off the user, which means bad UX.

I’m fully on board with the rest of your analysis.

Motivation to keep improving the project usually significantly drops off once it does what the initiator wants well enough - pair that with lots of programmers not having a great feeling for UX/it not being a primary concern.

Like so often in FOSS, if you want it, you’ll probably have to do it yourself. It’s rewarding (I’m currently polishing up a software project for friendlier UX), but also a ton of work (guess why nobody did it before).

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