7.7 Fix small problems yourself

This is important to be respected by the developers and be in accordance with the meritocracy. If you can fix issues yourself you are also not reliant on the developers doing it for you and can iterate even quicker when there is a small show-stopper. Some technical knowledge of the project can also help in understanding underlying technical issues which may come up in usability testing. Then you can easily judge if it is a problem with the interaction concept of the application or a bug. I want to make clear that design and software development belong together. That one flows into the other. That no good designer in this realm can stay entirely ignorant of implementation issues, and that no competent programmer can stay out of design. Wilms (2011) While Nelson’s (1990) dictatorial artists with full say on the final cut are needed to coordinate the design decisions, in an independent free software project everyone is a volunteer and does not want to be bossed around. If you engage in fixing issues yourself and not only report the problems, developers are more likely to acknowledge what you do.