API Design Tutorial: The Interaction Model

API design can be daunting. With so many decisions to make and so many differing opinions available on interface design, it’s easy to feel frustrated by the process.  Even worse, it’s possible to follow bad advice and end up designing an API that developers hate using.

That’s why we at the API Academy stress the importance of making rational decisions rather than irrationally selecting design patterns based on emotion or trends.  We want you to choose your design elements rather than picking them from the latest set of formats or technologies that you’ve heard about. And that’s why we’re working on a series of tutorial videos, as my colleague Mike Amundsen recently announced.

The first of these videos, titled The API Interaction Model – An Introduction, provides an overview of  a design process that will help you consider your user’s perspective in order to make effective design choices later. The ideas I discuss in this video are rooted in user-centered design processes that have been very effective in the software and product design worlds. If you’re currently designing an API, invest five minutes and watch the video.  It should be time well spent.