Robert Watson
ABSTRACT
This interactive poster explores the application of the 12 cognitive dimensions of API usability to API documentation planning by using the dimensions to identify and characterize the factors that influence the documentation that the users of an API require. Many factors can complicate estimating and planning the documentation an API requires. Even when an API's documentation requirements can be estimated, it can be difficult to present to stakeholders an objective basis for the estimate. The cognitive dimensions of API usability have characterized APIs and their users successfully and they have been used to communicate these characterizations to stakeholders. It follows that the same dimensions could also help identify the documentation that an API requires to provide a satisfactory and successful experience for the software developers who use the API.
- S. Clarke, "Describing and measuring API usability with the cognitive dimensions," presented at the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations 10th Anniversary Workshop, 2005.Google Scholar
- T. R. Green, A. E. Blandford, L. Church, C. R. Roast, and S. Clarke, "Cognitive dimensions: Achievements, new directions, and open questions," Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 328--365, 2006.Google ScholarCross Ref
- C. Bore and S. Bore, "Profiling software API usability for consumer electronics," presented at the Consumer Electronics, 2005. ICCE. 2005 Digest of Technical Papers. International Conference on, 2005, pp. 155--156.Google Scholar
- R. Watson, M. Mark Stamnes, J. Jeannot-Schroeder, and J. H. Spyridakis, "API documentation and software community values: a survey of open-source API documentation," in the Proceedings of the 31st ACM international conference on Design of communication, 2013, pp. 165--174. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Applying the Cognitive Dimensions of API Usability to Improve API Documentation Planning
Recommendations
API documentation and software community values: a survey of open-source API documentation
SIGDOC '13: Proceedings of the 31st ACM international conference on Design of communicationStudies of what software developers need from API documentation have reported consistent findings over the years; however, these studies all used similar methods--usually a form of observation or survey. Our study looks at API documentation as artifacts ...
Development and application of a heuristic to assess trends in API documentation
SIGDOC '12: Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communicationComputer technology has made amazing advances in the past few decades; however, the software documentation of today still looks strikingly similar to the software documentation used 30 years ago. If this continues into the 21st century, more and more ...
An API Design Process in Terms of Usability: A Case Study on Building More Usable APIs for Smart TV Platform
COMPSACW '14: Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE 38th International Computer Software and Applications Conference WorkshopsProducts 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 ...
Comments