Dogfooding

When a developer is building features or fixing bugs, there are a million tiny decisions (in addition to a few big ones) that they’ll need to make. They’ll need a clear way to tell if each one of those decisions helps the user or not. The best way to do this is to make them see through the eyes of the user. Create a dogfooding exercise where you give them a series of goals to complete as if they are one of your target users. This is particularly helpful for products that are not aimed at the general consumer and might be difficult for a new developer to understand.

What better way to get the objective view of a user than to lead the developer through a path a user would take when using their product? This gives our developers fundamental ideas on how to better serve our user base.

This can be approached in many ways. Ideally you will have a section that you can give them that will allow them to experience the app as a user. This will show them how the application is meant to be run. During this time, it is important to encourage collaboration between the new developer and those more experienced than them. This fosters teamwork and will plant the seed for future communication.

Consider this your chance to show the engineer what the app should look like from a user’s perspective.

Show them what the app should look and function like. Give them an idea of how users will navigate, create advertisers and targets, and more.

Oftentimes this means creating a dummy account and having the engineer complete certain steps to gain an idea of the app they are working on.

This is a common onboarding tactic when bringing on new people that gets them “on the same page” as everyone else. Thus making them work towards the same goals your team has.