What is DX and why is it worth attention?
While UX (user experience) is a well-known concept among the general public, not much is known about DX (developer experience) even among professionals. And that's what we are aiming to change. Because developers and their satisfaction constitute key attributes of successful digital products.
DX = Developer Experience
How do you understand this concept? DX is the experience developers gain while working, using necessary tools, and while being a part of a team with its specific dynamics.
DX has two sides: internal and external. The goal of the former is to streamline processes in the team and remove all possible obstacles impeding working or functioning in the team.
What belongs to the internal DX:
- communication in the team and trust between its members
- meaningfulness and accuracy of job assignments
- substitutability
- setting up roles so that people enjoy them
- team rituals (retrospectives, 1-on-1s, planning, mentoring)
- the art of conflict resolution
- getting things done faster - using appropriate tools
- more automation and less wearisome manual work
What external DX includes:
- clarity and ease of use of development portals
- documentation quality and comprehensibility (API documentation, product documentation for developers, ...)
- tools and their operation (clarity, meaningfulness, ease of use, time saving)
- development of SKDs for easy integration of third parties
- quality of the developed product (low error rate, …)
- the speed of integrating one developer's product into another produc
And why is it so important to keep an eye on the correct setting and level of DX? Because development experience affects the quality of the final product. Satisfied developers produce more quality products. If they are happy with their work, they work faster and better (lower error rate) which will have a positive effect on the product itself--it will be better and more successful. You will also reduce team turnover which will ensure important business continuity.
Why DX Heroes?
We ourselves have been part of IT development teams, so we know what DX looks like and how it affects people and the fruits of their labour. And since most companies don't keep that in mind, we would like to change that. That's why we’ve founded DX Heroes, and why we’ve been improving the development experience for two years now.
Not sure how well your developers fare in terms of their DX score? Get in touch with us, and together we’ll figure out how we can help you. We are happy to share our experience with you, advise you on how to measure and improve DX, and help you set up processes and evaluation criteria.
Author
Prokop Simek
CEOAfter 10 years as a software engineer and architect, he is helping companies improve their digital products. Skilled in Typescript, Node.js, React, Ruby on Rails, and Apache Kafka.