Application development environments can be a bit territorial. Depending on the culture, lines can be drawn between “back end developers”, “front end developers”, “designers”, “project managers”, etc. due to their having different priorities.

– Back end developers are often most concerned with getting their apps working according to spec, while meeting crushing deadlines.
– Designers also face difficult deadlines, but their main concern tend to lean toward how things look.
– Front end developers are somewhat caught in the middle. They must make both designers, and back end developer happy while being a voice for the end user. Being the first to see the actual app working as the end user will see it, the front end developer is often the first to discover UI and UX issues that were not visible in the designs, wireframes or code.

No matter how skillful the code is written, or how pretty the design looks, or how smoothly the project was managed, if the user experience is bad, users simply won’t use the app, and the company will suffer. A great user experience must be a top priority for everyone working on the app.

However, telling a back end developer (who has already submitted their final code and has moved on to their next crushing project deadline) that changes are needed because the UX is poor – well… that doesn’t always go over too well.

Back end developers may even tend to avoid designers and front end developers because of concerns that they might request code changes.

One tool that front end developers can leverage is usability testing. For the unfamiliar, usability testing involves arranging for usage tests with several neutral users to perform a few specific tasks on an app while they are on camera. The user is asked to ‘speak out their thoughts’ as they use the app. If there’s a problem with the UX, it is usually obvious with only 3 or 4 user tests. The user test video clips are edited into a short presentation demonstrating the issues and can be a very effective way to demonstrate the need for changes that will increase the chances of success. This works best when periodically scheduled into a continuous integration process.

Check out Basic Usability Testing With Zoom