There was a time, not so long ago, when developers could make a product and people would use it no matter how bad it was. It would generally garner some level of success simply by virtue of its existence. We now live in an age where there is a lot more competition. Now, with tools like jQuery Mobile, anyone can quickly craft impressive looking mobile sites in a matter of hours.

So, how do we differentiate ourselves from the competition? We could certainly compete on price. People love good value. But there is something that has always seemed to trump price, and that is the user's experience. User Experience (UX) is what differentiates most of the world's most successful brands.

Which computer company is not only staying afloat but is absolutely swimming in success? Apple. Sure their products are expensive, but ultimately they are successful because they've always been at the forefront of designing around the user.

Amazon provides a great experience by helping you find what you're looking for quickly. They give great reviews and recommendations for your purchasing decisions. Google could promote whatever they want on their homepage, but instead, they have kept their homepage almost as clean as it was on the day they started.

It's hard! We like to think that how we make a program or web page is crucial. We like to think that, by shaving off 10 percent of our code, we're making a big difference. But have you ever tried to explain the details of your current project to a friend and just watched their eyes glaze over? Nobody cares but us. All they hear is faster, smaller, easier, simpler, and so on. They only care about things that have a direct bearing on their life: their user experience.

The most important lesson we can learn as developers is that we can write the most elegant code, create the most efficient systems, accomplish small miracles in less than 1K of JavaScript, but if we fail in the area of usability, we will fail completely.