Jaran Flaath

This is a repost of the original from my previous blog at https://world.hey.com/jaran.flaath

We love to obsess with technology. That new UI framework, that new paradigm for software design, functional versus object orientation, multiplatform versus native – there's no lack of technological details to immerse in and fall in love with.

Moving from backend to frontend over the last four years I've gotten a new guiding voice at the back of my mind: what will this do for the user experience?

How will choosing A over B impact the user and improve on their experience and help solve their problems? Because that's what most of us are in software development to do: We're facilitators of our users. Our job is to solve their problems, and if we can; delight a little on our way.

The focus should be on choosing the technology that is right for the team and right for the problem at hand, to enable the team to perform, deliver – and at the same time enjoy it. Whether you implement natively, with React Native, with Flutter or whichever technology you've got at hand does not matter in the long run. The key is having a functioning and thriving team capable of delivering on user experience, with a technology that they are well-versed in.

To deliver on user experience, maintainability is obviously key. Being able to maintain a healthy code base which is easy to reason about, will enable the team to deliver efficiently and with reduced number of bugs. Which technology or framework used to achieve this should come second.

Having a happy, well oiled team working in an environment they are comfortable and skilled in, is much more important to the success of your product and quality of your user experience, than whether you choose framework A or B.

For 2022 I challenge you to put user experience first and delight your users!