"Crowd Design or not" an API

[miqui]

hi community,

When designing an API, what would seem to be a good collaboration approach?  an (or very few) individual (perhaps member(s) of the dev team), or a crowd (i.e. devs, testers, PO, potential consumers....etc..etc)

..thoughts?

rgds,

Miguel

[Lukas Rosenstock]

Hello Miguel,

the API design team probably shouldn’t be too big so you can collaborate effectively, but that doesn’t mean you should rush and have a one-sided team of only the API’s backend developers.

If you have tech writers for API documentation they should be able to give their feedback early on, so include them.

If your API is a backend for frontends, such as mobile or single-page-apps, then the frontend developers as API consumers should be the primary drivers of the process.

For external APIs you also need to consider non-technical requirements so include business people responsible for them, too.

Getting feedback from potential clients is also a good idea for external APIs so you won’t build something nobody wants.

Hope this helps!

Lukas Rosenstock

https://cloudobjects.io/

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[James Higginbotham]

Hi Miguel,

I agree with Lukas - keep the group to a reasonable size, but involve multiple people with a variety of roles. Backend API developers tend to be myopic in their understanding of how the API will be used, often missing the mark and resulting in a rapid v2 that breaks the previous version due to poor assumptions and misunderstandings. 

Here is an article mentioning this recommendation, within the context of the API training that I have been conducting for the last few years: https://launchany.com/lessons-from-training-1400-people-in-web-api-design/

James

[Lukas Rosenstock]

I just read this article about collaborating on APIs using ideas from Design Thinking;

it doesn’t exactly answer you (even though it asks the same questions) but I think it might be an interesting read for you at the current stage of your API development process:

https://www.programmableweb.com/news/how-design-thinking-can-make-your-good-api-amazing/sponsored-content/2018/10/24

Lukas Rosenstock

https://cloudobjects.io/

Am 29.10.2018 um 18:38 schrieb miqui <migm...@gmail.com>:

[miqui]

..thanks Lukas... more ore less what i was thinking.... thank you for sharing!

[miqui]

hahaha  

>>

 collaborating on APIs using ideas from Design Thinking;

>>

... recently I came across some Design Thinking folks at work and they "got me thinking...."     hmmm, perhaps I should experiment with Design Thinking for API design....   i'll have share my journey in the next

RestFest

rgds,

Miguel

[miqui]

..thanks James...for sharing your thoughts.... great article!!  glad i am not off the mark on this topic as have been evangelizing those same points talking to hundreds of devs, bas, scrum masters  at work....

rgds,

Miguel