2025-09-16 –, Bierstadt Lagerhaus Stage
As DevOps practitioners we imagine, design, & execute solutions all the time. Sometimes we think we've implemented our solution flawlessly, but in fact it's failed the users. Why? Often it's because the code works, but the interface is unfathomable. In this talk we'll explore the idea of "technical empathy" & how it enables user adoption, and even joy.
From software to sneakers to sofas, the best designs are executed from the point of view of the user, maintainer, or owner - NOT from the point of view of the designers themselves. The terms "usability", "intuitive", and even "innovation" are (or should be) inextricably linked with the perspective of the recipient, not the creator.
The ability to see things from this perspective is called "technical empathy". In this talk, I'll define what technical empathy is; describe how having technical empathy enhances our design choices, smooths the road to execution, and leads to better outcomes; and provide ideas on how developers and engineers can build technical empathy in themselves and foster it within teams.
As IT practitioners, we often focus on nailing the desired feature; creating small incremental changes rather than sweeping monolithic updates; by collecting metrics on usage and flow; and by maintaining a "fail fast" mentality where we can pivot quickly. But all that might miss a key point: do we understand how the intended beneficiary of our brilliance thinks? Do we know not only WHAT they want, but WHY they want it? Or how they want it?
Technical Empathy is what allows us to start from the right context, and maintain the right direction as we go.
In my sordid career, I have been an actor, bug exterminator and wild-animal remover (nothing crazy like pumas or wildebeests. Just skunks, snakes, and raccoons.), electrician, carpenter, stage-combat instructor, ASL interpreter, and Sunday school teacher. Oh, yeah, I've also worked with computers.
While my first keyboard was an IBM selectric, and my first digital experience was on an Atari 400, my professional work in tech started in 1989 (when you got Windows 286 for free on twelve 5¼” when you bought Excel 1.0). Since then I've worked as a classroom instructor, courseware designer, helpdesk operator, desktop support staff, sysadmin, network engineer, and software distribution technician.
Then, about 25 years ago, I got involved with monitoring. I've worked with a wide range of tools: Tivoli, BMC, OpenView, janky perl scripts, Nagios, SolarWinds, DOS batch files, Zabbix, Grafana, New Relic, and other assorted nightmare fuel. I've designed solutions for companies that were modest (~10 systems), significant (5,000 systems), and ludicrous (250,000 systems). In that time, I've learned a lot about monitoring and observability in all it's many and splendid forms.