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I personally think API design should be done by someone who has background in both UX and engineering. Even though you know your audience is going to technical,

by dm8 14y ago

I personally think API design should be done by someone who has background in both UX and engineering. Even though you know your audience is going to technical, you'll eventually have people across the spectrum from noobs to pros using your APIs.

mehdim 14y ago
I completly agree. We often forget that an API is still an interface, and it is often more a designer and part that a technical part.(but still a technical part or maybe a cultural technical part) In Real Life, product interface design or service interface design is often better made by external desiner that focus on understanding OBJECTIVELY how users will and want interact with , than the original producer or provider which will be affected by what he wants to expose and its history and vision about his product.
kevinburke 14y ago
I disagree. As a programmer every function signature you write is an interface to the code inside. API design is a slightly higher-level version of this. I would expect good engineers to be able to design good API's, it's a natural extension of something they should be good at anyway.
- m12k 14y ago
  Engineering and UX design are both examples of communication. When I write code I communicate with multiple audiences in mind - the compiler, my current and future colleagues, and future versions of me, that might not remember what this variable is, so better name it meaningfully. Similarly I communicate with my employers about what they want me to develop, and I communicate with our users, to help them understand what this thing that I coded does, and how that is beneficial to them. I find that the best engineers (indeed the best people in any role) are the best communicators, who are constantly aware of the many audiences that they are communicating with and are always weighing these many different needs. A good engineer is an ambassador between the technical and non-technical.
codeme 14y ago
I think interface designer should be the person who understand the use case of it's users.
csallen 14y ago
On a related note, I think the design and organization of your API's documentation is equally as important as the design of the API itself. Stripe's mostly single-page two-column layout (found here: https://stripe.com/docs/api https://stripe.com/docs/api) is brilliant, and makes it extremely easy to find what you're looking for.

by dm8 14y ago

mehdim 14y ago

I completly agree. We often forget that an API is still an interface, and it is often more a designer and part that a technical part.(but still a technical part or maybe a cultural technical part) In Real Life, product interface design or service interface design is often better made by external desiner that focus on understanding OBJECTIVELY how users will and want interact with , than the original producer or provider which will be affected by what he wants to expose and its history and vision about his product.

kevinburke 14y ago

I disagree. As a programmer every function signature you write is an interface to the code inside. API design is a slightly higher-level version of this. I would expect good engineers to be able to design good API's, it's a natural extension of something they should be good at anyway.

m12k 14y ago
Engineering and UX design are both examples of communication. When I write code I communicate with multiple audiences in mind - the compiler, my current and future colleagues, and future versions of me, that might not remember what this variable is, so better name it meaningfully. Similarly I communicate with my employers about what they want me to develop, and I communicate with our users, to help them understand what this thing that I coded does, and how that is beneficial to them. I find that the best engineers (indeed the best people in any role) are the best communicators, who are constantly aware of the many audiences that they are communicating with and are always weighing these many different needs. A good engineer is an ambassador between the technical and non-technical.

codeme 14y ago

I think interface designer should be the person who understand the use case of it's users.

csallen 14y ago

On a related note, I think the design and organization of your API's documentation is equally as important as the design of the API itself. Stripe's mostly single-page two-column layout (found here: https://stripe.com/docs/api https://stripe.com/docs/api) is brilliant, and makes it extremely easy to find what you're looking for.