Workshop: Do Users Love Your API? Developer-focused API Design
summary
Mailchimp reports ~250,000 users hitting v2 every day and billions of requests, finds 75% rated it “good or excellent,” yet v2 suffers many endpoints, inconsistent errors, API keys in bodies, and awkward batch subscribe behavior. The redesign uses json hyper schema (and considers Swagger/RAML), serves/accepts JSON, favors HTTP basic auth, exposes HATEOAS links, versions in the URL, and handles non‑CRUD actions like campaigns/{id}/actions/send. Usage logging goes into Elasticsearch for logging to spot hot endpoints and surprising client patterns.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (37)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:51Meet the speakers
- 3:31What is an API
- 4:46Developerfocused API design
- 6:17What developers want
- 6:59Never return
- 7:30Bad API experiences
- 13:03Good API experiences
- 13:37Learning about MailChimp
- 14:57MailChimp main features
- 15:13Who uses the API
- 15:51Usage patterns
- 16:33List management
- 17:44List parts
- 19:26Intent
- 25:58Endpoints
- 27:30Troubleshooting
- 30:22Principles of DeveloperDriven API Design
- 30:41Google Gmail
- 31:44Design for Intent
- 32:46Follow Dont Lead
- 33:40HTTP Response Codes
- 34:00Dont Lever
- 36:41Yelp
- 38:03HTTP
- 39:40REST
- 40:33Uniform Interface
- 41:02Resource Representation
- 41:31Selfdescribing Messages
- 42:34JSON Schema
- 44:01Restful API
- 44:57Why Restful API
- 45:37Disclaimer
- 46:03Designing the API
- 50:39Resources
- 52:09Feedback
- 57:25JSON Hyper Schema
related talks
35mWhy MailChimp loves the web
27mUser focused API Design
39mUser (developer) experience of your web API
35mBuilding Your API for Longevity
57mGive it a REST - Tips for designing and consuming public API's
35mPrinciples of Awesome APIs and How to Build Them
17mTransforming API Management: A Case Study from Atlassian
26mLessons learned from Re-architecting an API platform