DevEx Friction Audit
Your developers are hitting walls you can't see. They sign up, hit something confusing, and close the tab. You won't know it happened until you look at your activation numbers and wonder why they're flat.
The Friction Audit is a 2-week evaluation of your developer platform across 7 dimensions. You get a prioritized list of what's broken, ranked by impact and effort, with specific recommendations your team can act on immediately.
Start a conversation →The evaluation framework
7 dimensions of developer friction
Most DevEx problems cluster around the same patterns. These seven dimensions cover them. They come from 10 years designing developer platforms, not a checklist someone wrote once and never tested.
Time to Hello World
How quickly a new developer reaches their first successful API call.
Error Experience
The quality and actionability of error messages, codes, and failure states.
Documentation Quality
Accuracy, completeness, discoverability, and navigability of docs.
Conceptual Model Alignment
How well the API's design matches developers' mental models.
Feedback Loops & Debugging
The tools and signals available when something goes wrong.
Onboarding Paths
The clarity and completeness of the paths from signup to first integration.
API Design Consistency
Naming, conventions, and behavioral patterns across the API surface.
How it works
Two weeks. One deliverable.
WEEK 01
Deep dive evaluation
I work through your platform the way a developer would. I run real integrations, read the docs end to end, and break things on purpose to see what the error states tell me. Every friction point gets documented with a severity rating and a code example, across all 7 dimensions.
WEEK 02
Synthesis & delivery
Findings go into an Impact × Effort matrix, then into your Friction Audit Report. I deliver it in a 60-minute session with your team, we walk through every finding, and you get to push back on anything that doesn't ring true.
What you get
The Friction Report
- 5–7 critical friction issues, each with a code example and a fix you can hand to an engineer
- Impact × Effort rating for every issue
- Quick Wins section: items your team can ship this week
- Strategic Opportunities: bigger improvements with longer payoff cycles
- 60-minute delivery session with Q&A