Building the Developer Experience Right - May The Force of API Be With You

Developer Experience
Right
Building The
Let The Force Of Be With You
Nabayan Roy
APIs

@nabayanroy #stc16
The Rise of Web
APIs
What is
Developer
Experience?
What are the
Key Elements of
Developer
Experience?
Real
Examples
The next 45 minutes…

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The rise of the ‘Cloud’
@nabayanroy #stc16Building The Developer Experience Right

@nabayanroy #stc16
API
API
API
Everything is an API, today

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Your API is a product.
Make it first class.

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Developers are users too
Are you building the developer experience right?

@nabayanroy #stc16
User Experience Developer Experience
“User experience refers to a
person's emotions and
attitudes
about using a particular
product, system or service.”
- Wikipedia
1. “User experience applied
to developers.”
2. “It is the sum of all interactions
between the developer and an
API.”
- Anonymous

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Key elements of the developer onboarding experience

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Understand your developers
Empathy principle

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Tailoring the first impressions
Your homepage should invite developers
to stay, explore, or take action

@nabayanroy #stc16@nabayanroy #stc16Building The Developer Experience Right
Empowering developers
Developer Your API
Awesome & powerful developer

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Selling the dream
provide valuable context to developers so they
can better understand how your API works

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Simple and instant signup
Keep the requirements light and the
process fast

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Outstanding documentation
Good documentation is vital; helps the
decision-making process

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Support every step in the path from novice to expert
Learning path trajectory

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Libraries and SDKs
Provide a working sample app that actually
shows developers best practices

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Evangelize and build a community
Forge partnership

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How we are building it: Forge and AutoCAD I/O

The Mothership

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Overview page
Building The Developer Experience Right
Limits and Quotas
Field Guide
API Basics
Recent Changes
AutoCAD I/O web service, which are design automation APIs on the Forge Platform, allows developers to run AutoCAD
scripts remotely and enable them to process DWG files at cloud scale. You can create an AutoCAD script or use one of
our sample scripts, then point the AutoCAD I/O web service to the DWG files, and finally run your script on the DWG
files. AutoCAD I/O loads the DWG files, and then runs the script on each file. Upon completion, AutoCAD I/O saves the
output to your specified location
Keep it crisp and clear
@nabayanroy #stc16

Recent Changes and Versions
Field Guide
API Basics
Limits and Quotas
What to include inside your overview section?

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Step-by-step guide

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Interactive docs
Lets you easily explore the API endpoints

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Explore further…

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Organize your APIs using endpoints in a logical manner
Error codes for your response and body structure
Request header, query parameters, and body structure
Resource information
An example (request-response pair)
API Reference must include

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Client libraries
Sample code

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Forums
Blogs

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Delighting your developers

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Show them how other developers are using your APIs
Case studies

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Parting Thoughts

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Photo credit: Edgaras Maselskis
Define, measure and
constantly improve
your ‘Hello World’
metrics.
Design APIs for people
and not machines— API-
first is one way to focus on
the developer experience
from the ground up.
Understand who
your developers
are and how to
address them.
Make sure that your
onboarding process is
as painless for
developers as
possible to lower the
barrier of entry.
Support your
developers, help build
the ecosystem and
contribute to the
community—keep
fueling the innovation
funnel
Keep factoring
your developers’
needs into your
API design

@nabayanroy #stc16
The rise of the API economy

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References, Resources, and Credits
• Don’t Make MeThink by Steve Krug
• The Elements of User Onboarding by Samuel Hulick
• Developer Evangelist Handbook written by Mozilla Developer Evangelist
Chris Heilmann
• 100Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan
Weinschenk
• Autodesk Forge Platform
• Nordic APIs
• API EvangelistWebsite. Author Kin Lane
• The theme is inspired by one of my most favorite movies of all time –
StarWars (and George Lucas)

<Nabayan Roy>
<Principal Learning Experience Designer>
<Autodesk>
<Practice Group="Experience Design"
Product="AutoCAD" Location="Singapore"
Email=“nabayan.roy@autodesk.com">
</ Practice Group>
</Autodesk>
</ Principal Learning Experience Designer>
</Nabayan Roy>
@nabayanroyTwitter Handle
LinkedIn Nabayan Roy

© 2016 Autodesk. All rights reserved.
Autodesk and the Autodesk logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.
All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and
specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

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