🥁First strategy #webinar of the year: 31 January❗ Join @kvantomme to learn about how to build your #strategy for c… https://t.co/pTIjAapD7s
Developer advocate at BigCommerce
“It is the story of our developer portal evolving in parallel with the way that we think about developer experience as a company.”
In order to become the world’s most opened SaaS platform
AAARRP framework by Phil Leggetter
Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral, Product is a popular way of describing user journeys and all the supporting activities that developers go through as they use your product.
Creating developer personas: gather data, analyze, validate.
Maturity model in the devportal journey
A Developer Portal Scorecard helps you find out where your program is in the maturity model right now and what you should focus on more.
Measuring success
Takeaways
First up is @karen_pwhite from @BigCommerce talking about the redesign of their developer portal #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/qTPoiVap5p
— Kristof Van Tomme (@kvantomme) April 8, 2019
Information Architect and Content Writer at Pronovix
Pronovix developed a 4-step information architecture method to help their clients identify all the individual pieces of content for their developer portal and to find out how these pieces are related.
The high-level goals behind the method
Not all devportals are the same: specific requirements and business goals of companies have a significant impact on their devportals.
The method consists of four steps, where each step is built on the results of the previous ones.
1. Website Architecture Analysis Interview with questions grouped around four main topics:
Main deliverable: proto personas.
2. Inventory Session
Main deliverable: inventory list with four groups of content (existing content, inspirational sites, results of the website analysis discussion, suggested elements based on the interviews).
3. The Information Architecture Workshop
Exercises based on the results from the first two sessions:
4. Defining Next Steps
Check each page of the MVP sitemap closely and identify the content layout.
Add high-level estimates to 3 areas:
Next up is @MonikaZorgo's talk about @pronovix' 4-step Developer Information Architecture method #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/fT4eg56t5B
— Kristof Van Tomme (@kvantomme) April 8, 2019
Senior Developer Advocate at IBM
“Our content as it exists is really kind of that XXL t-shirt — everyone could wear it but probably just wouldn’t be comfortable with it — could we do things to change our existing content so that even the developers that need the finest clarity get it, and they’d feel comfortable, they’d feel confident, they’d want to continue using our product and they’d want to continue to be in this space.”
Think about the different backgrounds or needs of your different users: General assumptions about an enterprise developer
General assumptions about a game developer
Nights and weekend developers
What are the things that need to be considered to set up all those developers for success?
Things to think about
@MissAmaraKay giving a very lively presentation on "One size doesn't fit all" @APItheDocs @AWMuseum #Chicago @IBMDeveloper #IBMCloud #EnterpriseDeveloper #GameDeveloper #APIDocument pic.twitter.com/sQXwjeyqai
— Mary Grygleski (@mgrygles) April 8, 2019
Product manager at SpotHero
Goal: improve API usability by applying UX methods to APIs.
Discovery: Build something useful
Taxonomy: Make it easy to navigate
Mock & Prototype: Get the structures right
Usability: Find perfection
Takeaways
Applying UX design to APIs with Discovery, Taxonomy, Mocking & Prototyping, and Usability via @jennydove #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/RNtJxZ4Wj8
— Karen White (@karen_pwhite) April 8, 2019
Cloud Software Engineer Lead at Cloudreach
Containers
Containers are streamlined, lightweight virtual machines, without the need to upskill API developers.
Serverless
Serverless architecture uses Cloud Native services to create an infrastructure that does not need to be managed by the developer.
Legacy APIs
Modernized APIs
Netflix API gateway model concept (Zuul, 2014)
Things to consider when you start building a very large API project
Next is @nerdypaws talking about API development in the cloud #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/vVpRiNFo2d
— Kristof Van Tomme (@kvantomme) April 8, 2019
Content Experience Architect at IBM Cloud
How to generate a great authoring experience?
Goals:
Support developers and writers
Improve speed, quality, and compliance
Metrics and quality (for both descriptions and API Docs)
Workflows: Open API spec is the single source of truth
DevOps: develop, validate, build, deliver.
ContentOps: author, build, validate, deliver.
API reference output: organization, definition details, and examples.
Components for authoring
Next is Jennifer Schlotfeldt from IBM Watson talking about the authoring experience for API docs authors #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/styIKiNtUj
— Kristof Van Tomme (@kvantomme) April 8, 2019
Manager Platform Enablement at Ford Motor Company
Ford as an API company The mission is to design, build, grow and invest in new mobility services. Mobility services require an ecosystem built around APIs.
Ford is an API driven company: data analytics, city solutions, autonomy, FinTech, fleet services, location services, predictive systems, charging networks, parking, smart ownership, ride sharing, vehicle history, telematics, infotainment.
Why is Ford doing DocOps?
Ford Mobility approach to DocOps
DocOps practices must encompass all content types
Takeaways
"Is @Ford an API driven company?"
— SlashData (@SlashDataHQ) April 8, 2019
Darren Shelcusky from Ford Smart Mobility has the answer. #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/Sxhj4xb531
Lead API Documentation Writer at iManage
What CEOs see: a small group of writers can support a large group of programmers, and they only hire just enough writers along with automation to be able to produce a minimum set of documentation.
Writing great documentation
What about writing great documentation? Installing 100% confidence 100% of the time.
Document types
How we use APIs?
You’re never done writing
If it’s not already broken, then break it
Takeaways
Next up is @RobertDelwood who will explain why automated API docs are bad #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/f4bexzbV5c
— Kristof Van Tomme (@kvantomme) April 8, 2019
Documentation engineer at Netlify
About Swagger & OAS
Sauntering in the direction of
Maintaining tech values
Site Generators
GUI editing
Other options
@VeryThorough is up now! #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/wD4y2ZRy8I
— Amara Graham (@MissAmaraKay) April 8, 2019
Assistant Professor at Mercer University
The conversion funnel
Documentation’s inverted funnel
Reference topics make your customers smarter
Success metrics
Takeaways
Read Bob Watson’s article about his talk.
Conceptualizing all your API doc material: pyramid aka inverted funnel, via @bobwatsonphd #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/n3C1h48esv
— Scott Post (@s_post) April 8, 2019
Developer Evangelist at Contentful
What to do when nobody reads your docs?
RTFM (Read the Fancy Manual) can be harmful: “Not only am I not going to help you, but also I want to make sure that you feel ashamed about your inability to help yourself.”
Four ways of learning Documentation is only one of the tools used to educate people on how to use the product. You can support different ways of learning by providing the right form of documentation.
Areas of documentation Developer docs break down into three different levels:
Content & Documentation discovery When the documentation is too big to explore, reducing friction around information discovery is important.
More than text Documentation doesn’t need to be only static content:
Takeaways
Write your docs like nobody reads them by @ShyRuparel #APItheDocs pic.twitter.com/tRLYNbmtBA
— Kristof Van Tomme (@kvantomme) April 8, 2019
Original recording of the conference by Kristof Van Tomme, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License v3.0
🥁First strategy #webinar of the year: 31 January❗ Join @kvantomme to learn about how to build your #strategy for c… https://t.co/pTIjAapD7s
We're excited to bring you the new virtual sessions of #APItheDocs focusing on the importance of #feedback #metrics… https://t.co/ifmptrM2bk
The #APItheDocs Virtual series returns in January, focusing on what is worth measuring on the community side of do… https://t.co/hS5D5ZzGg0
💡What are the essential elements of #developerportals? 💡How do you build a strategy that creates and catalyzes grea… https://t.co/5xstaoMV2w