Watch / Hear the Full Episode
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro to show
00:27 Intro to Guest and Topic
04:36 Why Organizations Should Care About Developer Experience
06:55 Impulse for Starting With Developer Experience
09:34 Trend Towards Developer Experience
11:02 Avoiding the Fallacy: "I am the user"
14:42 User Research with Developers is Hard
19:04 Developer Experience vs. User Experience vs. Employee Experience
25:17Positive and Negative Surprises
29:37 Measuring the Value of Developer Experience
36:15 Getting Started with Developer Experience
41:14 Creating Better Products through Developer Experience
42:40 Principles for Successful DX
43:56 Jacob's Reading / Listening Recommendations
46:32 A Question to our Listeners
TAKEAWAYS
Developer Experience (DX) is often overlooked in organizations, but it is crucial for ensuring that developers have the tools and resources they need to be productive and successful.
A user-centric approach is essential when building technical platforms, as developers are the users of these platforms and their needs should be considered.
Conducting user research with developers can be challenging, but it is important to gather their feedback and insights to improve the Developer Experience.
Developer Experience overlaps with User Experience and Employee Experience, but it also has its own unique challenges and considerations.
Sharing stories and experiences can help stakeholders understand the importance of Developer Experience and the need for user-centric design practices in technical platforms.
Developer Experience (DX) is essential for creating better technical products and platforms by reducing wasted efforts and resources and improving user satisfaction.
Measuring the value of DX can be done through adoption rates, retention rates, satisfaction metrics, and financial indicators like cost savings and operational efficiency.
To start the DX journey, talk to developers, observe their workflows, and identify opportunities for improvement.
Build a strategy and start with small, impactful steps.
Pro tip: Invest in analytics for tracking user behavior and gathering insights for continuous improvement.
Principles that made Jacob successful: being human-centric, articulating the business value, and showing work when it’s still embarrassing.
Recommended resources include 'Team Topologies' by Matthew Skelton and Manuel País, 'Making Work Visible' by Dominika de Grande, and 'Not Forgetting the Whale' by John Ironmonger.
Jacobs’ Content Recommendation
Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel País. “They make user -centricity actionable. It helps you to get into the domain of software development and how things should be working.”
Making Work Visible by Dominika de Grande. “She talks about five time thieves that are stealing our time. And she shows ways how get rid of those time thieves by making work visible. — The connection to developer experiences: if you think about those time thieves that are in the book, maybe those are also time thieves for the developers, for your users that you might help with.”
And just for the fun of it, a fiction book. Not Forgetting the Whale by John Ironmonger. “What I liked about it, usually the dystopian ones are really ending on a more negative, sad note, or at least there's like an aftertaste that goes in that direction, but that one left me a little bit smiling and happy with a positive outlook for humanity.”
CONNECT WITH US
Jacob Bo Tiedemann (Guest on the show)
Sabrina Mach (Host)
A Question for You
What is your experience with creating a great developer experience? How have you been able to do this in your organization? And what were your successes and setbacks along the way?
Please share your experience in the comments or reach out to me directly. I would love to hear from you!
KEYWORDS
developer experience, user experience, employee experience, user research, technical platforms, developer experience, DX, technical products, platforms, user satisfaction, business goals, adoption rates, retention rates, satisfaction metrics, cost savings, operational efficiency, strategy, small steps, analytics, human-centric, business value, prototypes
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