Building Developer Tools Your Coworkers Won't Hate (devopsdays Silicon Valley)

It’s easy to complain about bad tools. It’s harder to write a great tool yourself. Once you step into the shoes of an internal tools developer, you realize that you’re balancing feature requests and constraints from a dozen different teams and an entire universe of complexity behind what should be a simple UI. In this talk, we’ll talk about how to gather information about your users’ needs, how to balance between conflicting requirements, and ways you can fail to build a tool that your coworkers want to use.

Transcript

1. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   building developer
   tools your coworkers
   won't hate
   adam barber (@necrobuffalo)
   amy nguyen (@amyngyn)
   devopsdays silicon valley | may 17, 2018
   

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2. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   who are we
   Amy Nguyen
   ● observability engineer at stripe
   ● excited about user experience design and
   education for developer tools
   ● @amyngyn
   ● amynguyen.net
   

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3. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   who are we
   Adam Barber
   ● software engineer at nylas
   ● excited about making usable software
   ● @necrobuffalo
   ● blog.taron.rip
   

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4. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   agenda
   ● motivation
   ● how to do user research
   ● UX design principles
   ○ command line tools
   ○ data analysis tools
   ○ build tools
   

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5. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   why care?
   ● bad UX causes incidents.
   incidents cost money.
   ● bad UX wastes time.
   time costs money.
   ● bad UX creates hostility.
   hostility costs money.
   

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6. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   ● talk to people
   ○ one-on-one
   ○ focus groups
   how to do user research
   

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7. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   how to do user research
   ● ask the right questions
   ○ don't ask questions that confirm
   what you were expecting
   ○ dig deep, don't accept the first answer
   

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8. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   ● communicate as you follow-up
   ○ build trust
   ○ confirm your solutions are the right
   solutions
   how to do user research
   

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9. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
   @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
   ● talk to people
   ● ask the right questions
   ● communicate as you follow-up
   how to do user research
   

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10. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    does anyone even know what that flag does?
    command line tools
    

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11. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    be consistent
    % man -h
    Usage: man [OPTION] [SECTION] PAGE…
    [...]
    

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12. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    be consistent
    % less -h
    Value is required after -h
    (--max-back-scroll)
    

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13. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    be consistent
    ● match arguments to your other tools
    ● match arguments to historical usage
    

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14. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    don’t break existing tools
    ● have integration tests for your internal tools
    ● design with existing tools in mind
    

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15. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    preview as the default
    ● if your tool makes critical changes to
    infrastructure, don't allow users to make
    those changes accidentally
    ./run-script --confirm
    ● provide diffs of what will change
    

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16. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    does that data really mean what i think it means?
    data analysis tools
    

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17. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    rapid testing
    ● users need a REPL or
    other way of quickly
    validating ideas
    

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18. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    discoverability
    ● autocomplete
    ● GUI or other menus for
    showing all the options
    

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19. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    correctness
    ● syntax errors and highlighting
    ● explanations for syntax errors
    

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20. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    explorability
    ● back button
    ● refresh button
    ● RESTful links
    ● open in new tabs
    

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21. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    data analysis tool design
    ● rapid testing
    ● discoverability
    ● correctness
    ● explorability
    

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22. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    i don't know who broke the build
    because i don't know how to find the build
    build tools
    

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23. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    navigation
    ● anticipate the most common actions
    ○ find my latest build
    ○ locate failing output
    ○ rebuild
    

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24. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    fail fast
    ● if something is failing, don't wait to
    finish before showing the result to
    the user
    

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25. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    helpful messages at the right time
    ● remind users to lint and unit test
    before kicking off a long build
    process
    

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26. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    helpful messages at the right time
    ● remind users to lint and unit test
    before kicking off a long build
    process
    ● suggest corrections for bad input
    

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27. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    summary
    ● communicate early and often
    with users
    ● imagine the context in which
    users will use your tools
    ● user experience and good
    design matters even for
    infrastructure tools
    

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28. @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn devopsdays Silicon Valley 2018
    @necrobuffalo, @amyngyn
    thanks!
    

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