Contribution 2: Choosing Open Source Project and Planning

Deciding on a project to contribute to

I decided my official first open source contribution would be from one of the "Project Ideas for the Final Assessment" documents that Lizzie provided (Link here). The project I decided to contribute to is SimpleBio, a large repository that houses various website templates for personal portfolios. There are a few reasons why I choose to contribute to this project, primarily:

1. It is recommended as one of the projects for the assessment, hence would suffice the requirements of this course.
2. I have experience with web design, so I am optimistic I can bring something new to the project.
3. Taking this project as an opportunity to create a website template that goes beyond what I usually develop and possibly integrate an element of interaction.

Link to project repository: https://github.com/vinitshahdeo/SimpleBio

Searching for a gap in design opportunity

After looking through the "Contributing" guidelines and familiarising myself with the project's structure, I determined the website type I wanted to contribute.

Before starting with my website design, I decided to look through the types of websites that are both in "Pull Request" and "merged" as an attempt to conduct a preliminary market research.

As desicussed in Week 5 of the course, "BETA: User Testing, Research, Analysis", prelimary research is crucial in the development of both design and code as it helps understand the user needs and identifying market opportunities.

After looking through the templates in the SimpleBio Open Source Project, quickly noticed that the sort of website templates that are contributed are purely static in the sense that they are the typical layout that one would usually find for commercial use. (see examples below)

Hence, I found an opportunity to fill the gap with a dynamic and interactive web design as the repository lacks a website representing a more artistic style guide.

Planning out my design

Who is it for?

As seen from most contributors, the primary beneficiaries are people in the creative industry looking for a digital platform to display and show their works and skills. Hence the website I will be designing for people within the creative industry looking for a website template to house their works (portfolio).

What should it have?

Looking at elements in the provided template, it is clear that there are a few key elements that are repeated, which are:

1. User's details (name, professional background, speciality)
2. User's contact information

However, as mentioned in the section above, I found an opportunity to make the website more dynamic and interactive to represent the creative practice equally. Hence I made it my personal goal to make the website interactive.

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Reflection

In this contribution, I applied the skills I learned from Week 5's User Testing, Research, and Analysis, specifically focusing on the research aspect. Using the knowledge I gained in Week 5, I conducted market research on past contributed website templates to identify an opportunity. I noticed that the existing project did not cater to digital artists who wanted to showcase their work interactively. Recognizing this gap, I decided to address it through my contribution.

Without the research knowledge I acquired, I wouldn't have been able to make a valuable contribution to the open-source project. I believe by conducting thorough research, I was able to bring something new and diverse to the project, adding value to the overall outcome.