Developer Portal Components - API documentation patterns part 1
Developer Portal Components - API documentation patterns part 1
About the Book
This white paper is currently only available to the subscribers of our "Developer portals & API docs" mailinglist. Sign up to get a copy. You can also read the posts the white paper was edited from on our blog.
We conducted an in-depth information architecture study of the documentation components used on 10 developer portals, searching for patterns. This is the first of 3 white papers in which we make an attempt at extracting best practices - all in order to help you build a better developer portal.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- A note from the authors
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1. Developer portals documentation patterns: introduction
- Developer portals in this research
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2. Overview pages
- The importance of overview pages
- Structural components
- Mental model, what is the function of your developer portal?
- Covering all the necessary documentation
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3. Onboarding pages
- The onboarding page, a crucial component for developer portals
- Different onboarding for different audiences
- Onboarding in the developer portal’s information architecture
- How to call your onboarding section
- Onboarding subcomponents
- Onboarding best practices
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4. Guides and Tutorials
- Guides and tutorials: documentation for differently skilled developers
- Sharing theoretical and practical knowledge
- Guides and tutorials in the information architecture of the developer portal
- How to call the components
- Formats of guides and tutorials
- Best practices: point out the difference between theory and practice
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5. Reference pages
- Reference pages: an API’s inventory and checklist
- Structure and subcomponents of the reference page
- Reference pages in the developer portals’ information architecture
- Various names for API reference pages
- Best practices to set up a reference page
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6. FAQs, Forums and other Support Resources
- Support resources are a documentation format
- Support types: peer-to-peer support and staffed support
- Choosing support types: support strategies
- Information architecture of support pages
- All support options on a single page: the support overview page
- Support labels
- Support page subcomponents
- Best practices
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7. Software Development Kits (SDKs)
- SDKs are part of the API product
- Why do you need SDKs?
- What types and how many SDKs do you need?
- Where are SDKs included in a developer portal’s information architecture?
- How are SDKs exposed?
- Labels
- Summary: SDKs on developer portals - best practices
- Want more?
- About the authors
- Creative Commons License
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