My talk from JSConf 2014.

1. Contributors
wanted
Increasing diversity in your
open source project

2. @k88hudson
Web engineer at Mozilla foundation

3. diversity === good

4. 1 What is diversity?
!
2 Why is diversity
important to open
source?

5. Identity
diversity

6. blue
pentagon
red
diamond

7. Cognitive
diversity

8. area = 1.7204774 × s2
convex
108°
4 sides
parallel
opposite sides
perimetre = 4s

9. Diversity
trumps ability”
“

10. Cognitive Diversity
Diverse perspectives: ways of
representing situations and problems
Diverse interpretations: ways of
categorizing or partitioning perspectives
Diverse heuristics: ways of generating
solutions to problems
Diverse predictive models: ways of
inferring cause and effect

11. Diverse groups – particularly
cognitively diverse groups –
outperform experienced ones

14. disjunctive tasks
!
complex, multi-
faceted tasks

15. git -b
!
npm install all the things

16. Diversity
of experience

17. Part 2
Implementation

18. Code contributors

20. Split up your code base
into modules, improve
docs piece by piece

22. Diversity is
valuable, also
hard.

23. Consider a
code of conduct

24. Help resolve conflicts
when/if they occur
!
Help people feel safe

27. github.com/Bantik/contributor_covenant

28. Let’s broaden our
definition of
“contributor”

29. “The only people who
matter to making great
software are people who
speak English and
write code”
!
— no one ever

30. User research

31. Does my software do
what I think it
does?

32. Write tests as you
implement new features/
discover problem areas

33. DESIGN
HOW DO YOU EXPECT USERS TO BEHAVE?
RE-TEST EXPECTATIONS
(fail)
IMPLEMENT
(pass)

34. 1. User stories/tasks
Users should be able to easily determine which events are free
and which need registration
2. Scenarios
Say you are trying to create an event for your javascript meet
up in Toronto. Where do you go to create an event?
3. Expectations
What will happen when you click on the ‘Register’ button?
What do tests look like?

35. Example: error states
1. Missing authentication
2. Requests time out
3. Missing (but expected) commands
4. Tag does not exist
5. Improper formatting of bower.json
6. Improper dependency resolution

36. Help contributors
choose the right
target audience for
tests that will be
relevant for your
project.
PRO TIP

37. You only need around 5
sessions to get a lot
out of user testing
PRO TIP

38. Results may be
unexpected.
(in a good way)

39. Multimedialokalisierung

40. Localization

41. Localization

42. Continuous localization
• Detect Accept-Language header
• Implement routing/UI/user sessions
to support custom language settings
• Add gettext() or other
implementation to templating system
• Upload strings in JSON files to
continuous localization platform

43. Host: “2014.jsconf.us”
Accept-Language:"en-US,en;q=0.5"
GET 2014.jsconf.us
Accept-language

44. GET /:locale?
GET /:locale?/tools
webmaker.org/en-US/tools
webmaker.org/tools
Routing

45. Gettext
.filter('gettext', ['localize',
function (localize) {
return function (input) {
return localize.getString(input);
};
}
]);
<p>{{ ‘Hello JSConf’ | gettext }}</p>

46. fr/webmaker.json

47. Transifex

48. Libraries can be
localized too

51. 1057

54. Instead of thinking about
your core team as mentors,
ask contributors to teach
you what you don’t know.

55. Determine your
blind spots, make
specific asks
localization accessibility performance copy writing
docs testing user research animated gifs

56. Remember!
1. Diverse groups – particularly cognitively
diverse groups – outperform experienced ones
2. Diversity is most effective for disjunctive and
complex problem solving
3. Modularize and help new code contributors
feel safe
4. Identify team weaknesses, broaden definition
of “contributor”

57. Making good
software is
fucking hard.
Cognitive diversity is way too
valuable for us not to care.

58. Thanks!
@k88hudson
If you want to find the book I mentioned:
Page, Scott. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity
Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies