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Blockchain Developer Experience: A Multivocal Literature Review

P. Soares, A. A. Araujo, G. Destefanis, R. Neykova, R. Saraiva, J. Souza

TL;DR

The paper investigates Blockchain Developer Experience (BcDEx) by conducting a Multivocal Literature Review that combines white and gray literature to map sources, practical implementations, and their impact on blockchain development. It finds a strong emphasis on gray literature—particularly blogs and corporate publications—while academic work on BcDEx remains limited and largely theoretical. The authors identify five shaping perspectives for BcDEx: abstraction of complexity, adoption facilitation, productivity gains, developer education, and evaluation, highlighting opportunities for academia to validate industry practices. The study emphasizes the need for standardized evaluation frameworks and closer academia–industry collaboration to create robust, developer-friendly blockchain ecosystems. Overall, the work provides a structured overview of current BcDEx tooling and practices and outlines concrete directions for future empirical research and methodological development.

Abstract

The rise of smart contracts has expanded blockchain's capabilities, enabling the development of innovative decentralized applications (dApps). However, this advancement brings its own challenges, including the management of distributed architectures and immutable data. Addressing these complexities requires a specialized approach to software engineering, with blockchain-oriented practices emerging to support development in this domain. Developer Experience (DEx) is central to this effort, focusing on the usability, productivity, and overall satisfaction of tools and frameworks from the engineers' perspective. Despite its importance, research on Blockchain Developer Experience (BcDEx) remains limited, with no systematic mapping of academic and industry efforts. To bridge this gap, we conducted a Multivocal Literature Review analyzing 62 to understand the distribution of BcDEx sources, practical implementations, and their impact. Our findings revealed that academic focus on BcDEx is limited compared to the coverage in gray literature, which primarily includes blogs (41.8%) and corporate sources (21.8%). Particularly, development efficiency, multi-network support, and usability are the most addressed aspects in tools and frameworks. In addition, we found that BcDEx is being shaped through five key perspectives: complexity abstraction, adoption facilitation, productivity enhancement, developer education, and BcDEx evaluation.

Blockchain Developer Experience: A Multivocal Literature Review

TL;DR

The paper investigates Blockchain Developer Experience (BcDEx) by conducting a Multivocal Literature Review that combines white and gray literature to map sources, practical implementations, and their impact on blockchain development. It finds a strong emphasis on gray literature—particularly blogs and corporate publications—while academic work on BcDEx remains limited and largely theoretical. The authors identify five shaping perspectives for BcDEx: abstraction of complexity, adoption facilitation, productivity gains, developer education, and evaluation, highlighting opportunities for academia to validate industry practices. The study emphasizes the need for standardized evaluation frameworks and closer academia–industry collaboration to create robust, developer-friendly blockchain ecosystems. Overall, the work provides a structured overview of current BcDEx tooling and practices and outlines concrete directions for future empirical research and methodological development.

Abstract

The rise of smart contracts has expanded blockchain's capabilities, enabling the development of innovative decentralized applications (dApps). However, this advancement brings its own challenges, including the management of distributed architectures and immutable data. Addressing these complexities requires a specialized approach to software engineering, with blockchain-oriented practices emerging to support development in this domain. Developer Experience (DEx) is central to this effort, focusing on the usability, productivity, and overall satisfaction of tools and frameworks from the engineers' perspective. Despite its importance, research on Blockchain Developer Experience (BcDEx) remains limited, with no systematic mapping of academic and industry efforts. To bridge this gap, we conducted a Multivocal Literature Review analyzing 62 to understand the distribution of BcDEx sources, practical implementations, and their impact. Our findings revealed that academic focus on BcDEx is limited compared to the coverage in gray literature, which primarily includes blogs (41.8%) and corporate sources (21.8%). Particularly, development efficiency, multi-network support, and usability are the most addressed aspects in tools and frameworks. In addition, we found that BcDEx is being shaped through five key perspectives: complexity abstraction, adoption facilitation, productivity enhancement, developer education, and BcDEx evaluation.
Paper Structure (23 sections, 5 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 23 sections, 5 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Methodological Procedures
  3. Search Process
  4. Source Selection
  5. Source Quality Assessment
  6. Data Extraction and Analysis
  7. Results
  8. RQ1) What is the distribution and nature of academic and industry sources related to BcDEx?
  9. RQ2) What categories of practical sources related to BcDEx have been discussed in the literature?
  10. Tool, platform/service, language, method/technique, model, process, or framework
  11. Heuristic/guidelines, empirical results only, or other
  12. RQ3) In what ways have the sources discussed in the literature been shaping the BcDEx in practice?
  13. Simplifying complexity through abstraction and enhancing usability
  14. Facilitating the adoption of blockchain technologies
  15. Impact on developer productivity
  16. ...and 8 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Multivocal Literature Review process.
  • Figure 2: Distribution of WL and GL type sources over the years.
  • Figure 3: Overview of sources related to Tool, platform/service, language, method/technique, model, process, or frameworks.
  • Figure 4: Overview of sources related to heuristic/guidelines, empirical results only, or other.
  • Figure 5: Main categories regarding the heuristic/guidelines, empirical results only, or other sources.