An API Design Process in Terms of Usability: A Case Study on Building More Usable APIs for Smart TV Platform

Abstract

Products are released based on various platforms. An Application programing interface (API) is important to develop platform based applications effectively. Previously, we had some difficulties in developing applications using our platform APIs. Their name was ambiguous, and their functions were not primitive, and even their documentation was not enough to refer to. Therefore, we had to maintain our platform APIs. In this paper, we propose an API design process and API evaluation guidelines. "API Analysts" elicit functions from requirement documents. "API designer" design APIs for the functions following the guidelines. "Technical writers" produce documentation for the APIs. "API reviewers" evaluate the APIs and API documentation conforming to the proposed guidelines. Proposed process made our platform APIs more convenient to use for developing applications.