Meet Your End Users

As I write this, my last optometry related conference was back in 2023 - so almost 3 years ago! As of a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend another optometry related conference related to contact lenses. This time it would be different. Instead of attending as an optometrist (I think we call attendees delegates), I attended as a part of the sponsor crew. Our company had a booth, which acts as an opportunity to promote the business. You can say I’m on the “other” side now.

Why?

Even thought AWS Re:Invent was an unreal experience, I do see the value of us developers attending industry specific conferences (so our case is optics, eyecare and optometry). Our strategy now is to alternate between these industry conferences and technology conferences. The benefit here is that we gain more knowledge in our product space, which is related to our industry, as well as upskilling in our choosen craft.

My mentor encourages me to meet the end users. After you do that, you will have so many ideas — good ideas. You also see what you can do better with previous work that you had done. Writing code becomes a lot more satisfying because you know have a direct link to how it works rather than this abstract concept of how you think it will work for your users.

Seeing what your wrote in action is also a magical feeling as well.

The Conference

I don’t want to indulge you with the details of what went on in the actual conference. I only want to talk about my reflections at a higher level.

The conference was over 2 days and then my company hosted a specific 1 day event. Before attending I was nervous since I had never interacted face-to-face with end users of the product we build on everyday. Obviously, I work with the product team, who are very knowledgable about the domain as well as the fact they are very in touch with the end users, but there is a risk that I can get out of touch since I’m one-step removed from the coal face. Despite having served on the front lines as an optometrist, the familiarity I once had slowly diminishes with time.

So, the main questions that plagued my nerves would have been:

• What if they give bad feedback and how will I respond, after all, I love what we do and I think we do a good job?
• What if I say the wrong things?
• What if I bore them talking about things that are not relevant like user roles and API calls?
• What if they think I’m a fraud because I just make the website look pretty, I don’t work on the hardcore algorithms?

I think the last two questions are really my ego screaming in agony.

To combat the what-ifs, I had the simple goals (and credit has to my collegue for leading me in the right direction):

• Learn: observe the interactions
• Record any feedback constructive or negative
• Answer questions honestly

And with that, I was ready to take on the days at this event.

What Did I Learn?

Plenty. But probably too detailed for what I intend to get across with this writing here.

I alluded to this before in my what-if questions, but constantly during the days I would think what I work on specifically was not important or interested. This probably needs some reframing: what I work on is important and interesting to a few people but it’s impact is not in obvious sight. This reminds me of a talk by Dr Werner Vogels at the AWS re:Invent 2025. Parapharasing, he mentions how “your best work is hidden”.

I also learned is that we have a range of users: complete neophytes who have never used our product before, to people who use our product infrequently, to those who are experienced users who don’t need much hand holding. It’s like a Shakespearian play or a Pixar movie - they are able to cater to a multitude of audiences and we much do the same for our users.

These events were also a good experience for me to see how the product team (and business) interact with the customers. I also got to see talks given by my collegues for the first time. Something I aspire towards is giving talks but I lack confidence and I don’t know what I say or think is appropriate nor interesting to others.

Conclusion

Meeting the individuals who use what your build face-to-face is a rewarding experience. I encourage teams to support your developers to do so as it provides good learning points and keeps your “in touch”.

I certainly found it useful and I’m very fortunate I was given the opportunity to attend. Now, let’s see what happens in the future.