Non-coders Guide to Contributing to Open Source

In 2023, I can't think of a better way to showcase your skills than contributing to open source.

And that's not only for experienced programmers, but ANYONE having a career in tech.

In this post, I will cover contributions that non-coders can make to started with their open source journey (right away).

Let's dive in!

TL;DR

• Report Issues
• Suggest Improvements
• Participate in Discussions
• Improve Documentation
• Spread the Word

Report Issues

Every project has some areas of improvement.

Broken links
UI glitch
Cryptic error messages

You can battle-test the product
And help maintainers identify bugs.

Make sure you provide context and steps to reproduce the issue.

Suggest Improvements

If you cant find any obvious bugs...

Think what could have improved your user experience?

How is app rendering on mobile?
Is page load speed ok?
Any instructions which are not clear?

Raise improvements as feature requests.

Participate in Discussions

Collaboration is key in open source.

Be active in project related discussions.

Depending on the project it can be over:
Discord/Slack
Mailing Lists
GitHub Issues

See where you can add value or share a perspective.

Improve Documentation

Open source projects should be easy to use and understand.

Lot of it depends on the documentation.

You can audit project repo to know whats missing.
And contribute in form of:

User Guides
Demo Videos
FAQs

Spread the Word

Lastly..every open source project needs evangelism.

Share your experience of using it in a:
Tweet
Blogpost
Or a YouTube video

Thats how projects get visibility and reach.
And youll learn some marketing

Wrapping Up

That's it!

These are some ideas on how can you make valuable no-code contributions to an open source project.

BTW - If youre looking for an open source project...

Heres mine: AskDevs

If you liked this post, follow me for more of these

Also, would love to hear any no-code contribution I missed in comments