In this LiveCast, we feature Abhinav Asthana of Postman and Fokke Zandbergen of Zapier on the topics of API Usability and Developer Experience. Learn how to design APIs that don't suck, empowered by the shared knowledge of integrating over 1,000 APIs.

3. LIVECAST: API Usability & DX

4. WHAT IS NORDIC APIS?
A international community of API practitioners and enthusiasts.
Quality events
all over the
world - 2018
High impact
blog posts
Illuminating
eBooks

5. UPCOMING EVENTS
API SECURITY FOR BANKING AND FINTECH
MARCH 22ND | COPENHAGEN
AUSTIN EVENT
JUNE 11-13th | AUSTIN, TEXAS
THE 2018 PLATFORM SUMMIT
OCT 22-24th | Stockholm, Sweden

6. NEWSLETTER
Bi-weekly digest of critical API insights
Sign up at:
https://nordicapis.com/newsletter/
"Nordic APIs is invested in educating the community,
something that makes their work stand out"
-Kin Lane, The API Evangelist

7. EBOOKS
Compendiums of our top insights on niche API topics. FREE downloads:
https://nordicapis.com/api-ebooks/
Upcoming release!

8. How to Successfully
Market an API
The bible for project managers in the process of
promoting an API program.
● Developer experience
● Improving developer portals
● How API design best practices
● Discoverability for APIs
● Quality developer relations
FREE Download: https://nordicapis.com/ebooks/

9. WHY FOCUS ON USABILITY?
● Effects all APIs
● Quality Developer Experience (DX): essential
● Always room for improvement
● Easy to share best practices
● Combines both business & technical

10. APIs Must Be UsableREAD: https://nordicapis.com/8-keys-to-creating-a-truly-usable-api/
“If your API is poorly designed, poorly documented and poorly
supported and they’re not required to use it, you can bet they
won’t.”
-Ronnie Mitra

11. ● Quick onboarding
● Great technology / functionality
● Visible resources
● Positive tone
● Quick & scalable
● Externally tested
● Reliable, well-maintained
● Secure
Great API Usability Has...
READ: https://nordicapis.com/8-keys-to-creating-a-truly-usable-api/

12. 4 APIs Doing DX Well
READ: https://nordicapis.com/4-apis-doing-developer-experience-really-well/
Heroku – A Communicative API Marvel - An Interactive API
Scale API – A Guided API Zalando - A Responsive API

13. How to Become a Dev Fav API?READ: https://nordicapis.com/optimize-developer-experience-api/
1. Take care of redundant or repetitive
tasks
2. Speak the language of your developers
3. Encourage a hands-on approach

14. NOW UP:

15. PRESENTED BY
February 20, 2018
APIs don’t have to suck!
Abhinav Asthana
Founder & CEO, Postman

16. February 20, 2018
APIs then
• Postman was a REST Client because I
hated cURL
• Built for simple use cases
• APIs were simpler and fewer.
• Code was written first. APIs were
slapped on later.
7,000
2012
#ofAPIs
Source: ProgrammableWeb

17. February 20, 2018
POSTMAN CIRCA 2012

18. February 20, 2018
APIs now in 2018
• APIs have exploded and so has
software functionality
• API first, code later is the default in
agile engineering organizations
• Happening internally with
microservices as well as public SaaS
solutions
7,000
2012
#ofAPIs
2017
THOUSANDS
OF APIs!

19. February 20, 2018
Postman Now
• 2+ million MAUs
• 500,000+ Collections created/month
• 4+ million users
• Available on all operating systems,
cloud, terminal and an API

20. February 20, 2018
• Developer tools for building APIs don’t talk
to each other
• People building APIs don’t talk to each
other

21. February 20, 2018
Postman Supports Every
Stage of API Development
Team Library
Collaboration
TeamLibrary
Collaboration
Monitor
Publish
Document
Design & Mock
Debug
Automated Testing

22. February 20, 2018
How can you create a great
developer experience?

23. February 20, 2018
1. Streamline your API development process

24. February 20, 2018
Design and create mock
servers for your APIs

25. February 20, 2018
Debug easily through clear error messages and guides

26. February 20, 2018
Create comprehensive
documentation for internal APIs

27. February 20, 2018
Write test scripts - help
them diagnose failures

28. February 20, 2018
2. Extra focus on your external APIs

29. February 20, 2018
Create workflows for use cases of
your API - see things from
another perspective

30. February 20, 2018
Publish great external
documentation

31. February 20, 2018
Monitor to ensure your API
works properly - eliminate
surprises for consumers

32. February 20, 2018
Step 3. Onboard faster with Postman

33. February 20, 2018

34. February 20, 2018

35. February 20, 2018
TITLE

36. February 20, 2018
Summary
1. Streamline your development process
2. Extra focus on your external APIs
3. Onboard faster with Postman

37. February 20, 2018
Thank You!

38. Q & A

40. NOW UP:

41. LESSONS FROM HELPING DEVELOPERS
INTEGRATE 1,000 APIS WITH
ZAPIER

42. FOKKEZB.NL/ABOUT
ZAPIER SUPPORT ENGINEER
Resolve Technical Questions Once And For All

43. ZAPIER.COM/ABOUT
> September 2011 Idea
> May 2012 Y Combinator Graduation
> September 2012 Raised $1.3M
> May 2014 Profitable
> June 2016 At 1M Users, $10M ARR
> August 2017 At 100 Zapiens (or Zorps)
> January 2018 At 1K Apps, $35M ARR

44. CHAIN APIS WITH NO CODE

46. INTEGRATE WITH ZAPIER TO INTEGRATE WITH 1,000
> Define Triggers (GET or Webhooks)
> Define Actions (POST)
> Watch users build Zaps across Apps
> Profit

47. LESSONS FROM HELPING DEVELOPERS
INTEGRATE 1,000 APIS WITH
ZAPIER

48. DON'T REINVENT THE WHEEL
> REST JSON
> OAuth 2.0 w/refresh
> REST Hooks
> OpenAPI ❋
Zapier is heavily optimized for these
standards.

49. DON'T SAVE ON DOCS
> Exists
> Complete
> Versioned
> Public: Developer Marketing Material
> Standard: OpenAPI (Swagger)
Zapier will support scaffolding integrations with OpenAPI.

50. SECRET TOKENS ARE SACRED
> Never expire...
> unless we have a Refresh Token...
> (which should never expire)
> ...until the user revokes.

51. WORK THAT BODY
> Limiting: limit, since
> Pagination: page, since, meta
> Filtering & Searching
> Field Masks: fields
GraphQL is awesome at all this, but at the cost of more
complexity and no builtin support by Zapier.

52. ORDER!
> Field: created_at
> Direction: DESC
> Ideally multiple combinations
Worst Case? Sorted from old to new,
with pagination but no meta data.

53. CONSIDER REST HOOKS
> We won't call you... you call Us
> Better UX than (Static) Webhooks +24%
> Reduces server Load & Traffic 66x
> Triggers Zaps Instantly
Zapier has started to require REST Hooks for Public Apps.

54. HTTP STATUS CODES ARE THERE FOR A REASON
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
"status": "error",
"code": 404,
"message": "Object is not found."
}

55. ...AS ARE HTTP METHODS
GET /book/add?title=APIs+For+Dummies HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.0 201 Created
Content-Type text/plain
Got it!

56. ...AND CONTENT-TYPE HEADERS
> Send what you say you will
HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: application/json
Parameter 'id' is missing.
> Don't mix content types
HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized
Content-Type: text/html
<html>
<title>Login</title>
...

57. MORE?
> Tech Blog: zapier.com/engineering
> Platform: zapier.com/developer

58. Q&API

59. Q & A

61. SPONSOR
Curity.io
@curityio
! THANK YOU !

62. FOLLOW NORDIC APIS
@nordicapis
slack.nordicapis.com

63. INTERESTED IN
PARTICIPATING IN OUR
NEXT LIVECAST?
Contact us:
info@nordicapis.com