Happy UI and a New Member

Hello Blog! or New creature to the the team!

It’s true. Raygun just got a new team member… And my name is Rick. I joined the team to make sure the back-end developers don’t write tags and other outdated markup in the app. But more importantly, I came to improve the UI to increase the user experience.

So who is the new member?

Well that must be me. A front end developer straight from the dark forests of Sweden. I like to send out a warning before you continue to read. This is not English, it’s Swenglish. Swenglish is a beautiful mix of swedish and english with some charming grammatical mistakes and it’s absolute unique melody (it’s like music).

Now I’m very excited to be part of the team of Raygun and I’m looking forward making improvements to the UI and the challenges the role comes with. I will now share some of my thought around developer tools and the importance of a good UI.

Raygun aiming high

In two years Raygun has grown from a empty html file to a fantastic error tracking tool with great success. Raygun have steadily been growing and reaching out to more and more developers. But now it’s a new time, a new era. It’s time to take an already successful product to a new level. Now it’s just a question of what level we want to take it to. To a higher level, to an even higher level or maybe even to the moon. Well I’m not a man of limitations so I would say that we should aim for the outer space. We should improve every possible thing to make the most for our users. Which is great because then YOUR users will also be happier with your product. If your users will be happier you will be happier and in the end everyone is happy. Sounds like we could have a happy party where everyone is just happy.

Why is developer-tools important?

Programers just want to get things done, right? No, for the most of us it’s not true. Because we spending a lot of time building apps and websites we want a good experience with the tools we’re using. The demand of producing systems fast is increasing, at the same time the demand of a reliable and stable products gets more required. Basically we have to develop more complex systems in way shorter time than before. Therefor having a great set of tools has a greater value than ever.

Top 3 qualities for developer tools?

My top 3 most important qualities for a developer tool is… efficiency, trust and fun. 3 maybe obvious qualities but I think we all know the feeling of “oh, I just saved me an hour thanks to this tool” or “I just saved me an hour thanks to this tool… and I’m not gonna tell my boss I used it”. But you probably also recognise the feeling of “This tool was very helpful but HEY, it was also fun to use”. When we can create a UI that turns something boring to fun we are achieving something great. We often put great importance to the UI to the “regular” user but I believe it’s as important for us developers. Developers also have feelings, don’t we? When a tool provides these 3 qualities you can truly be friend with it. This is what we want Raygun to be… Your friend.

Why it’s super cool to work for Raygun.

So far it have been great to be here. I mean, it’ve been really great. It’ve been that great so I will tell you why I love to work for Raygun.

Example 1:  I had a chat with my boss yesterday and he asked if I needed something. I’m not a needy guy but I am one of those who just have to eat a bit bigger portions than average kiwi (new zealander) do. I told him that a bigger plate would good be awesome. Today we have one bigger plate in the kitchen and one happier co-worker. And for the rest of you guys here at the office. That plate is mine now.

I think that example is that good so I’m won’t write about how amazing it is that we just got 4 new TV screens and how we can have movie nights without fighting about which movie to watch.

Thats all for now and thanks Raygun and you for reading this.

Some of Rick’s other posts (you can track the progress of his swenglish)

Pair Programming – How good is it?

How does website performance affect user experience?

Test Driven Javascript Development: An Introduction

Using Linters For Faster, Safer Coding With Less Javascript Errors