Why Developer Experience Is the Next X-factor You Need to Master
- Julie Jenson
- May 15
- 3 min read
How easily can your software developers find the information they need, communicate what they know, use the software and technology solutions they are required to work with, and see the effects of their changes in the code?
This sounds basic, but the tools that software developers use have almost never been designed with empathy for developers’ needs in mind. We seem to have forgotten that software developers are people too! But those who create developer tools can’t help assuming that their customers know as much about the tools as they do.
Developers get frustrated and confused, too
Because developers tend to be good puzzle-solvers with a hard work ethic, we expect them to deal with confusing, undocumented, or poorly designed tools in a way that breaks their own ability to think, solve problems, and collaborate.
It’s not developers that are the problem. It’s their tools and environment getting in the way. And although developers have plenty of amazing skills, they don’t actually have the expertise required to solve this problem on their own.
Because developers tend to be good puzzle-solvers with a hard work ethic, we expect them to deal with confusing, undocumented, or poorly designed tools.
Improving developer experience requires specialists in psychology and communication. You’ve probably heard of user experience (UX) and already invest in designing products that are usable and desirable for your customers. Fewer have heard of developer experience (DevX) and know that there are specialists in understanding software development human factors, too.
Translating invisible concepts
Software development is unusual because it is entirely based on abstraction. It de-physicalizes and turns fixed components and functions into infinitely transformable digital information. And with each new generation of software technologies, another abstraction layer is added.
Which is undeniably cool. But it also means that software developers work in a sphere of invisible concepts, translating between what the organization wants to achieve and the language that computers understand.
Translating those abstract concepts back into human-understandable language is actually a different skill set from coding for machines. Instead, you need people who can “speak software development” but who can also “speak human.”
It gets tricky when those humans then need to communicate with each other and coordinate their activities. It’s extremely difficult for other human beings to read and interact directly with that computer code and understand all of the abstract concepts that have been embedded in software.
It takes non-developers to design for developers
Translating those abstract concepts back into human-understandable language is actually a different skill set from coding for machines. Instead, you need people who can “speak software development” but who can also “speak human.”
This is where specialists such as Concrete come in. We have 30+ years of experience understanding the needs of software developers and translating that into the tools and documentation they need to work more effectively. We’ve done this for organizations like Intel, Dun & Bradstreet, Amazon, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation.
What's your take?
What’s the biggest myth about developers? What’s the role of documentation in software development moving forward? Has it gotten easier or harder to be a software developer in recent years? Leave your answers below in the comments.
This is the fourth article in a series. Click on the links below to read the other articles:
Concrete is the industry-leading human factors engineering consultancy specializing in software-defined everything (SDX) and developer experience (DevX). Contact us to deliver SDX at scale and elevate your success.
