Users should always be at the heart of any type of development, they are more than just customers and consumers, they are people! People with a wide variety of needs.
If you're not thinking about users, you'll soon be out of business
Currently, there is a big miss with current web design. Lots of modern web design provide catastrophic support for impaired users. There is a lot of Cool animations, and distinct topologies - Yet not a lot of intuitive, easy to use systems.
There are a lot of sites which are simply not keyboard only compatable. Yes, there are minor percentate of internet users who would not be able to use the mouse/ prefer not to.
There are also developers that switch off accessiblitly made functionality, just to improve aesthetic design. I.e, Input highlights : On firefox this is: a blue border around an input to signify that it is awaiting a user input. it is made for accessiblity, as well it guides web to speech voice over screening. So why turn these features off! it is hard enough as it is accessing sites with an impairment, do not close people out.
The developers are not their own users. They do not share the same background, culture and skillset. So how can we expect the developers to create a solution that the users will be able to use well.
How to integrate UX with DevOps
Here’s where UX comes in. A dedicated team member that ensures development is made with empathy in mind + continuous research to understand the users of the system. To learn the difficulties they may have and what additional needs they require but have not explicitly said.
“The user wants a red button that says exit” - The UX team member would refine this to - “The user NEEDS to feel safe (comfortable) on the website”
UX is all about extrapolating WANTS, and refining them to their true NEEDS.
I think this solution would greatly impact in creating higher quality sites. A UX team member is 100% required at any requirements gathering, if not, well that is not good enough.
Take away
Go to your project managers, sponsors, etc, speak to them about the impact that UX has on developing systems. Sure UX can sometimes sound “fluffy” but that does not disregard its need.
We need to think about our users first in any decision.