Contributor Onboarding Video Series for Fedora Design Team Docs #64
Labels
No labels
Acceptance
Fedora Design
Acceptance
Needs Info
Acceptance
Wont fix
Design Docs Revamp
Engagement
Long-term
Engagement
Medium-term
Engagement
Short-term
F45 Wallpaper
F46 Wallpaper
Flock 2026
needs review
Newbie
Needs research
Newbie
Well-documented
points
01
points
02
points
03
points
05
points
08
points
13
Priority
High
Priority
Low
Priority
Medium
Status
Backlog
Status
In Progress
Status
In Review
Type
Epic
Type
Request
Type
Sub Epic
No milestone
No project
No assignees
7 participants
Notifications
Total time spent: 15 hours 34 minutes
Due date
producerrob
15 hours 34 minutes
No due date set.
Dependencies
No dependencies set.
Reference
design/tickets#64
Loading…
Add table
Add a link
Reference in a new issue
No description provided.
Delete branch "%!s()"
Deleting a branch is permanent. Although the deleted branch may continue to exist for a short time before it actually gets removed, it CANNOT be undone in most cases. Continue?
What do you need?
This was originally raised by Madeline Peck in the Fedora Design Team's Element chat.
I'll be handling this ticket so please assign me to it, much appreciated!
A short series of animated explainer videos to help newcomers get started contributing to the Fedora Design Team. These would live alongside the new Fedora Docs site (currently being migrated from the wiki) as an audio/visual alternative for people who learn better by watching than reading.
Each video would cover one step in the contributor onboarding journey — things like creating a Fedora Account, signing the FPCA, finding a first task, and submitting work for review. Target length is under 3 minutes per video.
Request type
Media Design (video editing, video titles, animation, etc.)
Problem Statement
The Fedora Design Team is in the middle of migrating its documentation from the wiki to the Fedora Docs site. As that written documentation gets refreshed, there's an opportunity to add a complementary layer for contributors who process information better through audio and visuals than through reading.
Right now, the onboarding path for new design contributors involves multiple systems (FAS, the FPCA, the ticket queue, mailing lists, Element) that can feel opaque to someone arriving for the first time.
A short video series that walks through each step plainly and visually would lower that barrier — not by replacing the docs, but by sitting next to them.
Contacts
Primary contact: Rob Williams
Requesting team: Fedora Design Team
Deadline
No hard event deadline at this stage. The natural target would be to have videos ready to embed in the new Fedora Docs pages once the documentation migration is complete. We'd like to align the video production timeline with that migration so both land together.
Who will benefit?
Anyone interested in contributing to the Fedora Design Team for the first time — particularly people coming from outside the open source world who aren't familiar with Fedora's systems and processes. This also benefits the Design Team itself by reducing the load of answering the same onboarding questions repeatedly in chat and on the mailing list.
Secondarily, Fedora ambassadors and community members who direct people toward the Design Team would have a clear, shareable resource to point newcomers to.
Inspiration Examples
The Fedora Design Team's own existing docs and wiki onboarding pages — the videos should feel consistent with that voice and identity.
The Fedora brand guidelines and visual style (colors, typography, assets) should inform the look of the videos.
Short contributor onboarding videos from other open source communities (e.g. KDE, GNOME, Mozilla) would be worth referencing for tone and scope.
Priority / Severity
Medium (This will bring a good increase in performance/productivity/usability)
I've decided this can be accomplished in a series of very short, focused videos that are each no longer than :40 at most.
Video 1: Welcome to the Design Team - Introduction to what the Design Team does.
Video 2: Get Set Up! (Fedora Account, FPCA, Element Channel
Video 3: Find Your First Task! (Browsing ticket queues for beginner friendly tasks.
Video 4: Submit Your Work!
I think the easiest way is to make a slideshow, place a voiceover and export it to an MP4
I was thinking something a bit more produced, with b-roll, screen recordings, and motion graphics…but if that’s all that’s needed. No problem
@producerrob Hi Robert! Thanks for logging the ticket to track your work! It sounds very exciting! I'll assign you to the ticket soon, I just need to add you to the Forgejo Design group and then you'll need to log out and in again :)
@ekidney thanks so much!
@ekidney Video 01 is done.
Scripts for the next 3, to hopefully make a super easy guide for contributors.
Video 2 — Get Set Up
Target Runtime: :40
Video 3 — Find Your First Task
Target Runtime: :40
Video 4 — Submit Your Work
Target Runtime: :40
Here's my feedback:
Video 3
I'd combine the second part into one like this:
"Leave a comment on the ticket or post in the #fedora-design Element chat that you'd like to be assigned."
Video 4
I'd write something like "Request a full membership in the #fedora-design and an admin will add you to the designteam group"
On Video 1 my editing and graphics notes are:
Video 1 - Introduction. Notes implemented.
Video 2 - Rough Cut, needs some tightening, and some sound design, maybe some more screen captures instead of the illustrations.
Hey @producerrob. I am the community and marketing intern at Red hat and Im helping out the Fedora design team with video content. I think these videos are amazing and I love your animation style but just one teeny comment. The second video there seems to be an AI voice over. Have you tried recording you own voice over or what did you use for the first video as that sounded more human. Thanks! If you need a hand with anything such as screen writing or script writing feel free to reach out. I would love to help. Thanks - Rosie :)
I'd say both of those have an AI voice over, and wonder if someone in the fedora social/join fedora Matrix room would be willing to voice this.
Hi - thanks for inquiring, both voice overs are actually AI generated, but locally, with Kokoro TTS which is a free open source alternative that gave the best results but also seemed to fit the Fedora guidelines. It's generated in the terminal and you can choose from a few distinct models, there's about 5 different (3 male, 2 female)
If they need to be re-recorded by myself that's totally fine, but since they're locally generated with free and open applications, and sped up my process, I figured they were fine for short onboarding videos.
Happy to collab if there's someone on the matrix chat with a voice, maybe the podcast guy?!
@roryan wrote in #64 (comment):
I appreciate the kind words!
@roryan - thanks for the offer to help out on these, is there anything your extremely passionate about when it comes to producing content? I welcome any help I can get.
@niknikovsky - thanks for the suggestion, I ended up reaching out to Eric from the Fedora Project podcast. I'm working on looping him into re-tracking these for us.
Quick Update - Eric from the Fedora Project podcast will voice all 4 videos for me the week of the 22nd. And then, we'll continue production shortly afterwards.
@producerrob I really enjoy the editing side of things, but if you need a hand with anything feel free to reach out!
Looked at this in the Design Team Meeting June 8, 2026:
Looks amazing so far! Excited to see the development, especially with getting Eric from the Fedora project podcast as the voice! We both agree that his voice is super recognizable and will be awesome for regular contributors to notice.
@ekidney is going to be attending Flock this year, so depending on her capacity and if anyone else is attending with a good camera, we could get a few shots of things the design team has worked on in real life, to replace some of the stock footage.
For example, we could have one of the messages in the video written on the postcard we designed and show the design to the camera, then flip it around and it has a message about joining or something.
I'll review this a little more after our meeting, and watch the videos a few more times to gather my thoughts but really amazing work! Exciting stuff!
I think we could also show a transformation of whatever is chosen.
So for example from a blank postcard through some of the draft designs to the final one.
I have a camera that I can bring and we can record some stuff :)
Quick update on this project: Eric from the Fedora Project podcast has been sent the scripts, I'll restart production on these once the audio files are received. Thanks for the kind words in the meetings!
I think you can still work out the visual stuff (the choice of images, music, etc.) whilst waiting for audio
Finally had some time to look at both videos and wanted to leave some more detailed feedback!
Video 1
I feel like the background music is a little too intense right now. I think we could probably find an open license song that's still upbeat and passionate, but a little less electronic club music 😆
I believe the blue tint on the videos is a way to unify the stock clips and "fedora-ify" them a little bit, which I think is good attention to detail. But I think that the specific shade that leans cyan is slightly overpowering. I think a more transparent fedora light blue (hex code #51a2da) could achieve a more effective result.
Ideally, we should work towards replacing stock clips with videos from Fedora events. But that is a dream for one day 😆 Although... we could do an open call on Fedora discussions or the blog, asking if people have any horizontal video footage from events over the years 🤔. We might be surprised by what people have!
At 0:06 when the voice-over talks about the Fedora Design Team, I think we could personalize the visual to us specifically. Even if it's something simple like including our "logo" that we use in our matrix chat, or an image/animation of the Fedora mascots working together on a project. I think it would help with higher engagement!
I love how you've edited the section on what the team works on between 0:21-:28! The sound effects and screen transitions combined scratch that itch, and it looks awesome!
I think at :29, the text on the screen reads as one sentence that happens to be split in two clips, so it should be changed to
"And it's all done in the open," "with free and open source tools!"
Sound levels-wise, I think the noise effects could be lowered a little. And pacing-wise, it seems a little fast. But super engaging and really impressive already!
Video 2
I think we can find a more inclusive stock clip to use at 0:33 for adding your pronouns, that doesn't imply the fedora accounts only have two pronoun options! I'm sure we all want our nonbinary contributors to feel welcome 😄
0:19 We could have a more personalized key visual, but fine for now! We could make a separate epic/ticket to track personalized animations for these videos if people are interested.
All encompassing
I think during our next design team meeting on 6/29, we will watch these together and see if we have any other positive feedback or constructive comments!
We'll also discuss whether the Fedora logo is necessary in the bottom corner of the video's duration, and if so, how we can ensure it follows the brand guidelines. And the pacing of both videos.
Thank you so much so far for all the work you've done! Excited to see how these develop :D
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch and leave such detailed feedback! Once I have a prioritized list of changes the team agrees on after the 6/29 meeting, I'll get started on the final work. Excited to wrap these up! I did get all the voice over back from Eric today and it sounds great.
I wonder if one of those songs could work (I made sure to select public domain)
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holiznacc0/horseless-headman-halloween-beats/never-speak-of-the-devil/
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holiznacc0/interstellar-pop-songs (I have actually asked the artist if they're fine with it)
If that's the direction your team would like these to go, so be it. The songs in that second album are licensed under: CC0 1.0 Universal, so we're clear to do whatever we want with them - whether we reach out or not.
Out of those, this Jupiter track seems like a nice lofi feel. https://freemusicarchive.org/music/holiznacc0/interstellar-pop-songs/jupiter/
If anyone is ever curious where my assets, be it sound effects, visuals, footage, music, 3D models, or templates, come from, or just my workflow in general, I detailed it all in a blog post before I started to volunteer here. Just to make sure I was using safe material throughout the entire process: https://rjweditor.github.io/posts/fedora-creative-suite/
This was not consulted with anyone, this is just me looking around because it was mentioned that the background music should be changed
Looked over this during the Design Team Meeting 6/29 -
I'm going to listen to some of the songs Nik suggested above and we can discuss them in the matrix chat with others to see whether its a good direction to go in, for a majority kind of vote! I posted the fedora discussion open call for video footage here.
Thank you again for all the amazing work you've put in so far with this :D
@niknikovsky @madelinepeck - thanks again for all the follow ups, looking forward it working with the team -- and seeing what type of footage might become available from contributors.
Discussed in the Design Team meeting on 2026-07-13. @niknikovsky had requested this ticket be brought up for discussion.
Audio feedback: Madeline has not yet had a chance to listen to the song suggestions Nik provided. Rather than listening during the meeting (citing audio sharing difficulties with browser tabs), the plan is for Madeline to listen after the meeting and post feedback here.
Wider input: To avoid the audio direction decision resting on one person, Madeline proposed sharing the song suggestions link in the Design Team Matrix chat to crowdsource opinions from a broader group of community members.
Next steps: Review the suggested songs and gather wider community feedback on the audio direction.
Assisted-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context)
After listening to some of the music suggested from @niknikovsky 's comment above
I agree, I think Jupiter and also Never Speak of the Devil are promising! I haven't been able to find many other public-domain songs that have quite the right vibe yet, so if this gets picked up again, we could go in either of those directions!