Upstream Communities - Key Partners in UX Research

Learn how to leverage open source communities as valuable partners in UX research through this conference talk from DevConf.US 2025. Discover strategies for engaging upstream community members as research participants, particularly for highly technical enterprise applications where finding qualified users can be challenging. Explore a real-world case study of how a UX team successfully collaborated with the upstream Kubeflow community for an AI-related research project, including the specific challenges encountered when conducting research with community members and the valuable lessons learned from this experience. Understand why open source communities provide a unique advantage for UX practitioners, as community members and contributors have both relevant technical experience and a vested interest in improving their project's usability, making them ideal and enthusiastic participants in user research activities.