First users shape the platform's design

The idea in brief

An interface can look clean on paper and still fail its first real workflow. Comparing two deployments, understanding a blocked request, or diagnosing a failure are the kinds of tasks that expose gaps. Treating early users as a design input is a recurring recommendation in public platform-engineering guidance.

Platforms as products

The CNCF Platforms White Paper recommends building platforms around user requirements, as a product rather than a mandate. It lists ways to learn from users, including interviews, hackathons, surveys, issue trackers and usage data, and warns that platform teams relying on mandates instead of feedback risk resistance.

Start small, with engaged teams

The same paper suggests beginning with the thinnest reasonable layer over existing managed services, covering common needs such as pipelines, databases and observability, and working first with a small group of engaged application teams. That matches the post's point about getting a useful first version into people's hands and watching where they struggle.

User focus in DORA's research

DORA's 2024 report returns to user-centricity repeatedly. It associates a user-centred approach with better product performance and developer well-being, and its platform-engineering findings emphasise developer independence and a product-oriented approach.

Signals worth watching early

• Questions that repeat in support channels.
• Steps where users leave the platform for a workaround.
• Requests for information the abstraction currently hides.
• Tasks that need help from the platform team to complete.

@article{adam2026firstusersshapethedesign,
  title   = {First users shape the platform's design},
  author  = {Adam, Ammar},
  journal = {www.ammaradam.dev},
  year    = {2026},
  month   = {Sep},
  url     = {https://www.ammaradam.dev/posts/first-users-shape-the-design/}
}