“Ohhh no,” said my daughter as I called my kids into the kitchen.

It was Saturday morning and I’d just returned from a business trip the night before.

Her pattern matching suggested that I was going to dole out chores to them. She was bracing for a list of tasks.

She was pleasantly surprised when I handed them each a small gift instead. Pattern interrupt!

Developers are just as good at pattern matching as my daughter. Maybe better. They’ve seen the same patterns play out over and over:

Too many product mentions or hand-wavy claims in a blog post? They know they’re looking at slick marketing, not real technical details. Their pattern matching kicks in and they start skimming or click away entirely.

A form with a spot for a phone number? They know what’s coming next—a call from a sales representative who also doesn’t understand the technical details. Another pattern they’ve experienced before.

These are fair assumptions. They’re based on things developers have seen happen repeatedly. Your content might be different, but their pattern matching doesn’t know that yet.

The solution isn’t to fight the patterns. It’s to create a pattern interrupt.

When you know your audience in detail, you can be more specific. You’ll naturally mention the technologies they actually care about and the problems they’re genuinely facing. Instead of generic benefits, you’ll reference the ​edge cases that keep them up at night​.

That specificity becomes your pattern interrupt. Instead of another marketing piece, you’ve created something educational and helpful. The developer realizes this isn’t the same old pattern, so they keep reading or watching or scrolling your site.

My daughter expected chores, but got a small gift. Your developer audience expects marketing, but you can give them genuine help instead.

The key is knowing them well enough to surprise them with exactly what they need.

Need help figuring out your developers? ​It’s what we do​.