New roles in software development as a result of AI code gen

Boris Cherny, the lead developer of Claude Code posted that AI code gen is generating a blend of former job functions (ie engineer, PM, designer and data scientist). He has called the new 'job roles' or functions archetypes:

Prototyper	Comes up with brand new ideas; churns out many ideas, most of which don't ship
Builder	Quickly turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infrastructure.
Sweeper	Cleans up the UI, simplifies the code and system, unships, optimizes performance
Grower	Takes a product that has been built and iterates on it to improve Product-Market Fit
Maintainer	Owns a mature system to make it secure, reliable, fast, and efficient as it scales

As the product matures from an idea to an established product in the portfolio, you can see how the baton loosely migrates through these archetypes from innovation to development to delivery to optimisation.

Many people's skill sets span multiple archetypes.

A healthy team (and a healthy product!) needs a mix of these, depending on the product:

• A product that is new and doesn't have Product-Market Fit (PMF) needs people that are strong at 1+2+3
• A product that is growing and has found PMF needs 2+3+4 and some 5
• A product that has strong PMF needs 3+4+5 and some 2

Boris suggests that software teams of the future will look more like this, and less like the domain-specific roles of today?

Update on Monday 6th July

Nathaniel Whittemore in yesterday’s edition of the AI Daily Brief (excellent podcast on AI, BTW) argues that Cherny has missed out some outward-facing positions in this new game. 

Below is my critique of Nathaniels' PoV. 

Portfolio Manager of Opportunities	Nathaniel call this role an 'Editor' which really the Product Manager who prioritises the Roadmap.
Scout + evangelist	This is an activist who seeks out potential customers who might be interested in the new proposition (ie the results of the prototypers and builders). In truth you can’t build a product in isolation without some market interaction, so I think that all prototypers are scouts and evangelists as a natural requirement
Orchestrator + Conductor	IMO, it is the Product Manager who orchestrates the product beyond just working code (launch planning, awareness training, product marketing etc). Nathaniel sees Orchestrator as an internally-facing role and a conductor as outwardly facing.
Risk Steward	This to me sounds like part the Product Manager’s role, rather than carving out a separate role.

Litmus Test for B2C User Interfaces

A while ago, I was discussing the User Interface (UI) / User Experience (UX) with a friend who was building a B2C internet service. We're discussing the user process flow through the service's most critical feature.

Whilst building a B2C service at Midentity, I was handed some painfully humiliating lessons about the level of (in)competence of my users / what they understood about my product and its features / how much information they retained when they moved from screen to screen.

I emphasised to my good friend the very high standard of the user experience that is required for a B2C service. It has to be crystal clear.

My user experience litmus test

Here's the ideal usage scenario vs the actual scenario

Ideal Usage	Actual Usage
User is focussed on the task in hand	User is insanely multi-tasking: Intermittent interruptions on the computer - possibly Skype logins popping up or irritating pop-ups due to the number of browser taskbars / browser extensions or adware Fanatical Facebook or Twitter usage: following posts, commenting on pictures, Facebook IM etc Constant text messages interruptions - all of which require immediate response. Emails arrive that need to be responded to Possibly telephone calls as well - these might on a desk phone as well as the mobile phone. Background music - or if the user has headphones on, it might be 'foreground' music
Timely Completion of Task User concentrates on the task in hand without huge gaps between each step	Intermittent Usage Significant breaks in usage User walks away half way through registration. They return 30 mins later (ie their machine requires them to log in again). They look at the screen and wonder, 'What on earth am I trying to achieve from this service again??'
User has clear understanding what the service provides	Very hazy comprehension of the service  User skim read the home page and thought the site looks cool, so ploughed into the user registration If it doesn't follow their preconceived expectations, the user will exit and say that 'the service was confusing to use', when, in truth, the user failed to follow instructions however clear they were.
Clear understanding of what parts of the user will benefit from	User discovers the product's benefits by using it, not be reading about it. Access to help must be very close at hand Service must protect the user from their own silliness (ie lots of defensive logic and error checking)

What's the difference between B2C and B2B UX?

B2B users are paid to use your product or service. They are much more compelled to read the instructions / follow the process / get it right. They may have distractions but, in general, these will be much less than in the B2C environment.

 Recommendations 

• Use your product in the Actual Usage mode above - even better get your love one to use your product in the  Actual Usage mode - and prepared to be depressed!
• Every screen needs to be self supporting ie don't conclude that the user knew what button they pressed to get to the current screen OR why they pressed it originally. 
• Revisage constant restarts (eg multiple registrations, forgotten password requests half way through registration). 
• Watch 'virigin' / untouched new users as often as you can.
• Use focus groups.
• BUT be wary, users will say they want X functionality, but once produced never use it.
• Groups are also susceptible to Group Think ie one person makes a suggestion and the group conforms to that opinion, even if all the individuals individually don't profess to have that opinion.
• Track what users actually do, not what they say they do.

Any suggestions from elsewhere?

UI Challenges of Paperphone and Snaplet

Researchers at the Human Multimedia Lab at Queen's University, Canada have developed two functional paper computing devices: Paperphone and Snaplet. What's novel is the use of bending the flexible displays to provide input. For example, bending the top corner of the paper phone is 'go to next page' when reading an e-book.

However, what made my mind boggle was the UI challenges for the Snaplet. If it is bent around your wrist, it acts as a super duper watch / media player / calendar, etc. If you take it off your wrist and it is flat, then it converts to a note-taking tablet.

Here's a video of switching between the two modes.

User Experience Commandments

I was discussing some UI concepts with a buddy in California when I uncovered this gem of a site on Web Design: 10 Usability Tips Based on Research Studies.

Cameron Chapman refers to these as tips, but some of these are way more important: veritable commandments of interface design.

Here are my comments on these commandments / insightful advice or Tips that need clarification:

Tip 1: Forget the "Three-Click Rule" 
Old theory (well, 2001):

The idea that users will get frustrated if they have to click more than three times to find a piece of content on your website has been around for ages. 

Today's Common Sense:

The focus, then, shouldn’t be on reducing the number of clicks to some magically arrived number, but rather on the ease of utility...... - don’t let the arbitrary three-click rule stop you. 

Tip 2: Enable Content Skimming By Using an F-Shaped Pattern
Analyses the ‘Heat Maps’ of user attention. Either the ‘Google Golden Triangle’ - most clicks are in the top left and a couple on the right hand side (The right hand side is where Google makes their money, of course!).

Example of Google Heat Map

Looking at this heat map, one wonders why anyone puts anything on the lower right hand side of their side – I suppose to look balanced.

Jakob Nielsen, that guru of web design, whose own site now looks Neolithic in design discusses an F shaped pattern.


More on this research at www.useit.com/eyetracking.


Tip 3: Speed Up Your Website
Microsoft’s analysis on their search engine, Bing, showed a correlation between website speed and satisfaction, revenue generated per user and clicking speed.

To get a handle on your site’s availability and speed, I used Webmetrics (Arthur's tip: they have a free trial). See also this case study that I conducted with them on the impact of moving to the cloud on page performance. (Declaration of bias: I used to work for Webmetrics)



Tip 4: Make Your Content Easily Readable

people only read 28% of the text on a web page and decreased the more text there is on the page.

Tip 5: Don’t Worry About "The Fold" and Vertical Scrolling

Hmm, this research is incomplete in my opinion. Cameron links to better article: The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing.

In my opinion, content the above the fold must be interesting and engaging to warrant more browsing FULL STOP / PERIOD.

People would rather scroll down a page or two to find stuff, rather than having to click on yet another link and wait for another page to load.

So DON’T cram ALL your content above the fold on every page.

Example: if you have a long article to publish, it is much preferable to have the article all on one page, rather than break it across 3 pages. (Don’t you hate newspapers when they do this – it really hinders skim reading!)



TIP 6: Place Important Content on the Left of a Web Page



OK, this advice is correct, but again, doesn’t go deep enough. YES, put your important on the left (doh!), but web users have become so familiar with the 3 column model of websites that they zone in on the middle 50% of any website.

• Left hand column is 15% wide and contains navigation and then ads
• Middle column is 60% wide and contains the meaty content
• Right hand column is 15% and contains ads exclusively.

So, my advice is to focus on the first paragraphs in your middle column – we’re back to the F-shaped Pattern above.


Tip 7: Whitespace of Text Affects Readability

Some obvious advice and some less obvious advice – see the post for the details - I won't cut and paste someone else's content verbatim.


Tip 8: Small Details Make a Huge Difference

…..how removing a button and adding a clear error message to avoid user errors in a checkout process increased revenue by $300 million in just a year. The first month witnessed a 45% additional sales attributed to the revision of the checkout process.

If you’re a start-up, there are SOOO many ways to improve any given site. It’s difficult to know where to start-up – you just gotta plunge in I guess…..



Tip 9: Don’t Rely on Search as a Crutch to Bad Navigation
Search, in this context, means search within a site not Google / Yahoo / Bing. Doh - obvious



Tip 10: Your Home Page Isn’t As Important as You Think

People deep link to you and your site.

Therefore, a higher focus on landing pages versus your home page can get you more bang for your buck in terms of conversion and user-retention opportunities.