Research Article
What is a Good API? A Survey on the Use and Design of Application Programming Interfaces
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-031-51572-9_4, author={Natalie Kiesler and Daniel Schiffner}, title={What is a Good API? A Survey on the Use and Design of Application Programming Interfaces}, proceedings={Internet of Everything. Second EAI International Conference, IoECon 2023, Guimar\"{a}es, Portugal, September 28-29, 2023, Proceedings}, proceedings_a={IOECON}, year={2024}, month={2}, keywords={Internet of Everything machine-to-machine M2M Application Programming Interface API use API design API criteria}, doi={10.1007/978-3-031-51572-9_4} }- Natalie Kiesler
Daniel Schiffner
Year: 2024
What is a Good API? A Survey on the Use and Design of Application Programming Interfaces
IOECON
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-51572-9_4
Abstract
In the Internet of Everything context, relevant and valuable connections between people, data, processes, and things are core elements. Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connections can be achieved, for example, by using application programming interfaces (APIs). However, investigating quality criteria of APIs has not yet gained significant traction in computing, or computing education research. In this work, we present a study of quality criteria for APIs to identify which factors developers rate as important when it comes to an API’s quality. We then discuss how we can possibly quantify these factors. To achieve these goals, an online survey with experienced developers was conducted (n = 19). The results reveal that developers seem to appreciate established, stable solutions, the availability of examples, and a community. Developers also consider it important that an API can be extended, and integrated into an existing framework. However, strong trends among the criteria were not identified, as many factors play a role when choosing an API. Therefore more research is required to provide guidance to (future) software developers on how they can improve the design of their APIs.
