Learn how Developer Experience can help your business

When we think about the development of a company, we are placing it as a competitor in the market, which includes its digital media presence. Therefore, one of the first steps is to invest in platforms such as APIs, which enable integrations with partners and help evolve its workflows and open new businesses.

But in order to achieve a healthy evolution and actually advance your strategies through these platforms, you need to know how to get the most out of them, thus optimizing their use.

In this sense, this article gives us an in-depth look at Developer Experience (DX), a service used to administer your APIs, with security, agility, and to provide insight into what is needed to open new business opportunities for your company.

So, if you want to know more about how DX works and what gains you can make from it, read on!

What is Developer Experience?

Developer Experience is a term used to classify solutions focused on improving the experience of developers, who consume the APIs of their ecosystem, as well as the optimization of processes, engaging in direct communication with the dev team.

In this way, it provides close monitoring of API usage, leading to better health in terms of usability.

The purpose of DX is to assist and support API integrations, whether internal or external. Thus, support is provided focused on the API consumer’s own internal issues and also on the knowledge of the processes to provide better assistance.

A team of Developer Experience experts helps improve external and internal dev satisfaction in consuming APIs and saves resources of their customers' IT teams. This is done through a series of activities, such as:

• Setup of a customizable Dev Portal integrated with the API platform, with a sandbox for API testing, automatic documentation, and easy access;
• Development of Dev Portal Design and UX;
• Planning the onboarding process for partners and/or customers, based on existing integrations;
• Maintenance and automation of the necessary documentation;
• Analysis of metrics and monthly reports for continuous improvement of the experience, with insight into API usage (volume analysis), error rate, offenders, and portal access history.

The 3 top benefits of Developer Experience in practice

You’ve probably heard of the term Costumer Experience. Most companies have an exclusive department to better serve their customers and provide a more pleasant experience both during the buying process and after the purchase.

Developer Experience is built on the same principle. When your company has acquired this service, you can improve the experience of developers who use your APIs.

Therefore, we have listed the top 3 benefits that DX generates for your business:

1. Know the customer’s business process and rules: Understanding allows scenarios to be identified that could use some improvement. In a market context, it is possible to analyze the JSONs of the calls and then track the registered products, optimizing information and internal standards.

2. Problem resolution in partner integration: in the case of any situation that prevents a third-party retailer from uploading its products in a given marketplace, due to misinformation or non-compliance with one of the predefined standards, for example, DX can act proactively, notifying the Integrator (platform or hub) to seek a solution, ensuring that the information reaches the marketplace customer.

3. Inclusion and maintenance on the Developer Portal: Each customer needs a guide, so that the application developer who will use the API can provide guidance and documentation of process and usage rules. 

It is up to the Developer Experience team to analyze whether the available documentation is adequate and meets the developers’ needs, thus making the necessary improvements and optimizing the understanding of the flows, in addition to updating the information whenever necessary.

Having a Developer Portal with all the necessary information, with communication space and fully updated support, makes the integration process much faster, smoother, and hassle-free.

The importance of having a partnership on this journey

Undergoing the digital transformation journey is not a simple task and requires, above all, a medium and long-term vision of the maturity level your business can reach. That is why it is fundamental to work with partners that help us to have this perspective and are a reference in the market.

This is the role of Sensedia, a company recognized by Forrester as a leader in API Management and with a team of experts prepared to provide the best strategy in APIs and integration.

Do you want to learn more? We have an entire e-book on the subject. Click here and check it out!