Nothing is more important to web site and application development than User Experience Design (UX). This is something I’ve learned through experience and that I have a great passion about. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It is much easier to be “agile” when you are talking to a client or end-user and their change request involves changing a sketch or wireframe or a note on behavior, rather than completely reprogramming something.  Really good and to-the-point UX research and design can prevent mountains of problems and headaches and delays and disappointments down the line. It also ensures that programmers know the expectations very clearly, and won’t spend time adding features that no one wants and won’t design in a way that fits more easily into programming tool conventions than human usability conventions.

A recent blog post over at www.experiencedynamics.com really nailed this! I’m linking to their infographic because they have really expressed what I know through experience.