In the fashion space, there's a big move toward "visible mending." In ceramics, there's #kintsugi.
What does #VisibleMending look like for #software?
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@b_cavello a lot of other replies here are focused on source code, but that's not really software. To get something like visible mending for software will be very different than physical objects. I'd say it's more like working offline, progressive enhancement, data export/migration/archival tools, remote sync or backup/restore, planning for succession or end of support.
Software doesn't have much value on it's own. At least not in this sense. The value is in the things we do or make with it. And so mending for software is keeping those things available
In my governance software project, Kybern, I experimented with leaving UX for things people don't have permission for visible, rather than removing it because they don't have it. Similarly, you could leave what used to be possible visible - ghosts of old ux.
A lot of suggestions you're getting are around bugs in code but I think UX mistakes or changes are a more visible thing to repair.
@shauna Oooh, wow, that’s so interesting! What did you learn from the experiment?
I didn't really get far enough with the project to do significant user testing, unfortunately. It was a labor of love with zero financial resources behind it, and I switched over to paid work on Metagov before burning out on governance software generally.
You might like this video. It's pretty short (10 min) and has lots of screen recordings of the interface I'm talking about (primarily around minute 3 if you want to skip the political philosophy stuff): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ivhUOS-p6A
@shauna I never wanna skip the political philosophy stuff! You’re so cool.
Lmao of course not, what was I thinking?
@b_cavello release notes with something other than “bug fixes and optimisations”
@b_cavello patch with tabs instead of spaces