The 5-step process and benefits of a DX Audit

Developer satisfaction and efficiency are paramount to the success of any technology-driven organization. A crucial aspect that often goes under the radar is Developer Experience (DX). This article explores what a Developer Experience audit is, the auditing process, and the myriad of benefits it brings to organizations.

What is a DX Audit?

A Developer Experience audit is a comprehensive evaluation of the whole journey a developer has to go through to integrate a product. This audit focuses on various aspects, including but not limited to usability, documentation, API quality, support, and onboarding processes. The goal is to ensure that developers can efficiently find the resources they need, integrate APIs seamlessly, and receive adequate support, ultimately leading to higher productivity and satisfaction.

The auditing process

Defining a persona

It's key to get as close to a real world experience as possible, which is why we want to define what a typical consumer (usually a developer) of the product looks like, and what their use-case might be for this particular product. We then keep this in mind while evaluating, and try to look at everything from the perspective of this persona.

Walking the developer journey

The main part of the evaluation is going through the journey to integration as a customer would. You can download the whole journey map for free if you'd like. During this process we gather data about the current state of each stage. Here are the key things we look at for each stage.

The 5 Steps

1. Discover

This stage is all about being able to find the product when solving the set use-case. Some of the ways we test this are:

• SEO - How well does the product rank for relevant search terms?
• Business website - Is the site clear and discoverable?
• Events - Does the company participate in developer events?
• Case studies - Are there success stories from existing customers?
• Social media and articles - Is there active content marketing?

2. Evaluate

Checking which resources are available to be able to decide if the product is the correct solution, if it seems easy to use and if it comes at a reasonable price. We mainly look at:

• Developer portal - The central hub for all developer resources
• Value proposition - Clear messaging on home and product pages
• GitHub presence - Open source contributions and activity
• Pricing model - Transparent and developer-friendly pricing

3. Learn

We analyze if the developer is provided with all the necessary information they need to integrate the product. Part of that is:

• Signing up and account creation experience
• Spinning up a development environment
• Going through the quick start guide
• Documentation structure and organization
• Clear code samples and examples
• Overall ease of understanding

4. Build

Going further with the development, the next step is evaluating if there are tools, SDKs or other resources that can be used to easily get production-ready:

• SDKs and libraries - Available in popular languages
• Development tools - CLI tools, testing utilities
• Integration resources - Webhooks, APIs, plugins
• Support process - What happens when something breaks

5. Scale

The last stage of the journey is all about maintaining and expanding customer trust and providing opportunities to contribute to the product development:

• Product roadmap - Transparency about future development
• Status page - Real-time system health information
• Feedback mechanisms - Gathering input from current customers
• Success stories - Showcasing customer achievements
• Community engagement - Forums, Discord, Slack channels

Compiling a report

At last, we create a report of our findings. We focus on the fields where the organization is lacking in developer experience, explain what the implications of those deficiencies are, and propose potential improvements.

The report typically includes:

• Executive summary of findings
• Detailed analysis of each journey stage
• Prioritized list of improvements
• Competitive benchmarking
• Actionable recommendations

Get your own DX audit

Schedule a free consultation where we'll go over the whole process together. Remember, developers are your users too!

A well-executed DX audit can transform how developers interact with your product, leading to faster adoption, higher satisfaction, and ultimately, better business outcomes.