The project module and the processes that have evolved around the development process in Drupal were put in place by developers, for developers following conventions and processes they were comfortable with. To a designer this is like an alien landscape populated with customs and conventions that are not native to us but which must be followed if we want to contribute.

Additionally, many of the tools and processes that designers commonly use to surface new ideas, critique each others work, arrive at consensus and measure success have no analogs at all on Drupal.org.

To make matters worse all of the metrics by which a users status on in the community are measured are development centric (I contributed Drupal patches, I contributed Drupal modules, I contributed to Drupal issue queues, total commits etc.). we do not see "I contributed icons, I contributed design mockups, I contributed prototypes."

In the UX group we have been discussing this problem for a long time and many of us believe that in order to get out of this paradigm we need our own separate site. Others feel we should change project module from within. This forum will be an opportunity to discuss how we can change the Drupal development process to incorporate and value design in a way that invites and priviledges design intelligence.