Excited About Major Updates for Open for Product this week!
Adding More Natural Momentum
I made a major round of updates to the Open for Product core project this week:
- Fundry - The simplest way to move a complex project forward
- Project page redesigned for momentum
The details are technical in places, but the point is simple:
Open for Product is getting better at helping projects move.
This update gets us much closer to that, but there's still a lot of design work to do. I'm not completely happy with the way things turned out.
It's a work in progress.
A foundation for project funding
The biggest new piece is the foundation for Fundry, our funding coordination system for Open for Product projects.
Fundry is designed to help project members direct resources toward the work that matters most.
The idea is not just “donate to a project.” That is useful, but incomplete.
The more interesting question is:
What should this project be able to do next?
A project may need money for tools, research, design, marketing, operations, contributor payments, legal help, events, or any number of small but important steps that make work possible.
Fundry is being built to make those needs visible.
Instead of treating funding as one big bucket, projects can define specific goals. Members can help signal which goals should receive attention. Project leads can see whether those signals represent enough actual value to move something forward.
Planning first, payment processing later
No live payments yet.
Before connecting payment processors, I wanted to develop a model for how project funding should work in a planning mode.
So Fundry begins as a coordination layer using "credit" exclusively— essentially points.
This helps anwer questions like:
What needs funding?
What is close to being fundable?
What is still only pledged or pending?
What is actually confirmed?
What work could begin?
A better path into projects
I also made a broader design change to the project experience.
That means making it easier to see what is happening now, what needs doing, who is involved, what can be learned, how decisions happen, and where resources are going.
The code was a design update. But my intention was to make participation more clear.
When someone lands on a project, they should not have to decode the whole thing from scratch. They should be able to quickly understand:
What is this?
Why does it matter?
Is it active?
Can I help?
What would help actually mean?
That is especially important for Open for Product because the platform is not built around one narrow version of contribution.
People may contribute by doing work, asking questions, sharing resources, learning alongside the project, funding a specific need, helping make decisions, or simply paying attention until the right opening appears.
The design has to support that.
From pages to environments
A project page tells you about something.
A project environment helps the thing develop.
I want this to encourage action rather than look like a static resource.
Together, Fundry and the project UI design help Open for Product become a place where people can gather around incomplete work and help it become real.
Still incomplete, still moving
I really need some real-world feedback now (actually, months ago; but let's not dwell on the past 😂 .)
Feel free to jump in if you want to create a project, play with funding goals, do some coding, or just poke around and tell me what needs to change (that would be amazing!)
- app.openforproduct.com to sign up
- See the Open for Product project itself on the platform
- GitHub project
Or just follow along to see what happens next!