Gephi Lite is a web-based open-source network visualization tool built by a three-person engineering team. After two years of development, we had a functional application—and a nagging feeling that our interface wasn't working for users. The problem: we lacked the skills to diagnose what was wrong, let alone fix it. So we brought in Arthur Desaintjan, a design intern, to help us figure it out.

In this talk, we'll share how we approached design at a pivotal moment in our project's life—first by stepping back to clarify what Gephi Lite should really be, then by running user interviews that revealed just how far our assumptions were from reality. We'll walk through the specific findings that surprised us, the design decisions that followed, and what small open-source teams can learn from our experience about investing in design when you don't have designers.

Resources

• The project's website
• The web application
• Arthur's blog post about this journey