[waboremo]

Standardize communication, if the team talks on discord, have a channel for design. If there are github issue labels for feature requests, have labels for various design requests. Things like this go a long way! Contrast how people feel about translation changes vs design changes. Most people don't even know if the translation is valid! They accept it however easier than design changes purely because there is so much more standardization with translation changes. Create spaces where design talks can happen without people feeling like they're stepping over others toes.

Create a design document that new members can reference, copy, and base changes from. Figma is a great tool for this, but even if you don't have a design in place, even an open github issue or notion page stating the pulse of the project is great. What is the brand, why are the colors the way they are, who is the main user of the project, what are current discomforts about the design? It's hard to propose design changes (beyond micro issues) when designers have absolutely no idea what was actively chosen and what was a throwaway idea. This design document isn't just for designers! Developers also need it, especially front end developers who would need to know important things like hey we do not have access to images beyond 50x50 from the API.

I feel as though these two can go a very very long way with designers. They aren't silver bullets by any means, especially not designers who aren't developers at all, but it can go a long way to encourage larger creative solutions.

Oh and A/B testing! You don't have to have a grand official A/B system (although there are quite nice systems these days), even releasing a change but explicitly asking users for their feedback on it can go a very long way in improving trust on the team and moving design decisions away from "personal taste" and onto "this change caused a 30% drop in purchases" objectivity.