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Respect Users Time


Contributors may have limited time to contribute and may be doing so voluntarily.


Users may be volunteers, or they may be contributing on behalf of their organisation, but only as part of other duties. Regardless, time is being donated to the project to help achieve a shared goal.


Avoid wasting people’s time by respecting the effort invested into collecting and maintaining data, presenting clear ways of contributing, creating good editing tools, and avoid users having to repeat tasks.

Respect the time that users have to contribute to the project by thoroughly testing the user experience. Ensure that users are always presented with a clear task or means to contribute.

Support users by creating good editing tools that use validation to guide user input. Test the navigation, ensure any important information is communicated during the workflow, and ensure the interfaces are accessible, eg for people using screen readers.

Ensure contributed data is well managed. For example, avoid asking users to re-enter data because a decision was taken to remove or deprecate it; it may be useful to someone.

Related patterns

Feedback Loops

Good behaviours and useful forms of contribution need to be reinforced.

Onboarding Process

New project contributors may be unfamiliar with some of the language used and be unsure of how to use the tools. This can make it difficult to make good-quality contributions.

Know Your Community

A lack of understanding of your community limits your ability to support and engage with them.

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