To close this series, you should have a solid understanding of what API experiences actually matter most. Every enterprise API program is struggling with having too few resources, and needing to do more with less. This means that you have to have a solid understanding on what experiences will matter the most to your enterprise and you invest in the portions of your API landscape and the policies that will produce the most optimal experience possible, but in the areas that matter the most.
- Discovery - Making APIs easy to find when producing a new one or using in application or integration.
- Access - Access to APIs is always private and security, but also as frictionless as it possibly can.
- Onboarding - The onboarding process for API consumers is always easy, but also properly vetted.
- Communication - Teams producing APIs communicate, and there are feedback loops with consumers.
- Change - How do you reduce breaking changes and increase communication around API change.
- Products - Identify the Apis that need to become 1st class products, and those that do not.
- Guidance - There is guidance available at every step for both producers and consumers of APIs.
- Evangelism - Baking in champions, advocacy, evangelism, storytelling, and meeting in person.
API experience is the destination of API governance. The consistent design of APIs impacts every experience listed here. Nobody cares about API governance and everybody will care about API experience, but the two are linked together. Where you begin with API governance will shape these downstream experiences, and more. If you don’t have a handle on the experiences that matter most to your leadership, it is likely that you will invest in the wrong areas of API governance, so make sure you have a good map of the API experience landscape.
