Usable Software Ecosystem Research (USER) is a Sloan Foundation-supported research initiative that explores how open source scientific and research software (SROSS) teams understand, consider, and undertake usability and design opportunities in their projects. To read more about this project please check out Blog #1, Blog #2, our project website, and open repo.

In 2022, Superbloom partnered with Internews and Okthanks to create resources that help open OSS teams understand how design processes and activities improve the usability of open source tools. This post outlines some key themes identifying challenges in OSS design adoption, and introduces the resources created in response to these challenges.

Part two in a series of three blogs. Here we outline part of our research process for the Usable Software Ecosystems Research project. USER is a Sloan Foundation supported research initiative that explores how open source scientific and research software teams understand, consider, and undertake usability and design opportunities in their projects.

In March 2023, Superbloom attended FOSS Backstage conference in Berlin with support from Open Technology Fund. In this blog, we reflect on a design workshop we hosted for non-designers, “Making Design More Open” and share our key learnings and takeaways.

Supported by the Sloan Foundation, we introduce USER, a research initiative that explores how open source scientific and research software teams understand, consider, and undertake usability and design opportunities in their projects. As part of our active work on this project, we are openly sharing our progress along the way in a series of blog posts.

Information security focuses on third parties’ access to user data without permission. Develop your knowledge of principles and practices to design transparent and accountable systems with our curated resources that include uses cases, emerging research issues, and the implications of current events for the field.

We interviewed Matthew Wild, the creator of Snikket—a safe and secure instant messaging app—to learn more about his work process and experience working with Simply Secure to improve Snikket’s usability with support from the Open Technology Fund (OTF) Usability Lab.

For the past two years, we’ve been working with PREreview to promote equity in academic publishing by helping to build a new open source platform that supports a more inclusive, community-oriented form of peer review and publication.

Funders that offer better funding models and center the people that are supporting the infrastructure will make better funding decisions. We’re building a toolkit to help funders develop a robust understanding of digital infrastructure, and create or iterate on their own framework for funding.

Amnesty International asked our team to help improve UX design for PhishDetect, an innovative open-source browser extension for human rights defenders and their communities.

My recent post describing some of the reasons we choose Slack over IRC for our public forum is part of a larger conversation people are having around the promise and concerns of group-communication tools. A quick search for "Slack vs. IRC" yields a …

Thinking of design as not only a product but a process can help complex products stay secure as they evolve.