Designing Great Web APIs

Chapter 3. The Design-First API Process

Traditional software development is often focused on internal development teams that have access to the source code that makes the software function. Or, at the very least, they have access to the internal developers and data administrators to ask questions.

Web APIs, however, are more social in nature. They require collaboration between the developers consuming the API and the developers that built the API. They only have the API design and documentation to guide them. Developers consuming an API do not have access to the source code, database diagrams, or an internal knowledge base on why the API operates a certain, quirky way. They cannot copy-and-paste the source code for an API and make the changes they need to get their job done.

This means that our goals for our API design need to reflect simplicity and clarity and to anticipate the needs of developers and the end users who will indirectly consume the API from a web or mobile application. This is a difficult challenge for any team, no matter how experienced they may be with the particular software or business domain. Therefore, heavy emphasis should be placed on the API design process, including how your team translates product requirements.

This chapter provides a process and some guidelines for API modeling and design that your team may wish to incorporate into their process. Feel free to adjust as necessary to support your specific organizational requirements.

User Interface Wireframes ...