Open source interface politics: identity, acceptance, trust, and lobbying

Abstract

A study of the Drupal open source project shows the problematic status of usability designers with respect to the larger developer community. Issues of power, trust, and identity arise and affect the way that usability recommendations are acted on or ignored. Making a straightforward case for a particular interface design can be insufficient to convince developers. Instead various additional lobbying strategies may be employed to build up support for the design.