API The Docs Podcast

Or, maybe you could map it: what does each of you do, why, and how? We converse about integration of practices and practice networks with Marc Burgauer, co-founder of Contextualise. Together with Chris McDermott, they assist large organizations in their transformation efforts through maturity mapping. We are teasing out our ideas on how can the understanding of social practice theory–and the acceptance of complexity–possibly help write better technical documentation. How can we better ease and inform the users of the docs into the context in which the artifact operates? What would be the minimum shared vocabulary and methods to change anything for the better in a persistent, self-stabilizing socio-technical system–our workplace–and do we need to name practice theory at all for it?

Or, maybe you could map it: what does each of you do, why, and how? We converse about integration of practices and practice networks with Marc Burgauer, co-founder of Contextualise. Together with Chris McDermott, they assist large organizations in their transformation efforts through maturity mapping. We are teasing out our ideas on how can the understanding of social practice theory–and the acceptance of complexity–possibly help write better technical documentation. How can we better ease and inform the users of the docs into the context in which the artifact operates? What would be the minimum shared vocabulary and methods to change anything for the better in a persistent, self-stabilizing socio-technical system–our workplace–and do we need to name practice theory at all for it?

We asked DevRel Kristyn Bryan and Application Architect Dmitry Pashkevich from the Calendly API team about the new, v2 of their API and the upgraded devportal. Why and how did they redesign the legacy API? They adopted a design-first approach to building APIs. How does this new strategy manifest in their daily jobs, what are they now doing differently? What are their teams' practices with customer feedback, and with internal mentoring?

Interview with Ruby Batallones, Technical Writer at Adyen and Aleksei Akimov, Head of API at Adyen Involve your technical writers already from the API design discussions: this can help ensure a consistent user experience across all APIs, and in finding the middle ground between the usability requirements and the architecture requirements. At Adyen, technical writers have the ways and means to add and maintain the descriptions in the source code, they can make sure that all the bits and pieces are linked together and enough context is provided everywhere. This practice brought that techwriters habitually use the developer tools as well, and have a deeper technical understanding of the API, which in turn enables better communications earlier on. The recently open sourced Adyen Explorer and documentation won 2 prizes at the 2019 DevPortal Awards: Best API Reference Documentation and Best Decision Maker Documentation. Our guests are Ruby Batallones Technical Writer at Adyen, former solution architect and implementation engineer, and Aleksei Akimov, who started his career in software development, then added technical writing, was leading the Documentation & Developer Experience team and is now responsible for Adyen API design, strategy, and governance. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL database programs, providing both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Tony works as a senior technical writer on cloud based tools. He has 20+ years experience in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security, and he is a long-time supporter of API The Docs. In this second part of the interview we continue our conversation: - Adoption of OpenAPI specification - How to save large amounts of documentation time? - How to keep the specifications up-to-date? - How to simplify API documentation? The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Confidence and Critical Thinking: techwriting is life-long learning - Interview with Anthony Sansone, Senior Technical Writer at MongoDB MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL database programs, providing both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Tony works as a senior technical writer on cloud based tools. He has 20+ years experience in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security, and he is a long-time supporter of API The Docs. In this interview, Tony and the hosts are delving into the following topics: How has the technical writing job market changed lately? Speeding up complex onboarding and training of new technical writers at MongoDB Embrace inquisitive juniors and help build confidence, keep open office hours In Part 2, Episode 22, we continue our conversation: Adoption of OpenAPI specification How to save large amounts of documentation time? How to keep the specifications up-to-date? How to simplify API documentation? The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Building a DevRel Team - Interview with Lorna Mitchell, Head of Developer Relations at Aiven.  Lorna is an open source software developer and project maintainer, published author, blogger and conference speaker, who is with us today to talk about the skills and roles that contribute to successfully operating a devrel team: Priorities and structure when developing a new devrel team Roles and responsibilities Involving a technical writer in the team Career path, growth and collaboration in a devrel team Insights of creating a new open source devportal Aiven open source data tools and products Maintenance of documentation and workflows Sources: Read more about Lorna’s work here: https://lornajane.net/ For job offerings at Aiven, please visit: https://aiven.io/careers The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Alex Hoffer is a DevRel engineer at Plaid. Previously, she was managing the QA team at Dropbox for 6 years. At Plaid, she's been working on documentation and an overhaul of the Plaid developer docs. Developer experience is extremely important at Plaid and the docs are a big part of that. Tune in to hear more about how to create an excellent developer experience: How does a cross-functional team work together with other departments in order to improve the developer functionality? How developer experience is about product, documentation and engineering collaborating together? What is her role in the API Review Committee, which helps ensure APIs are standardized and maintain their API style guide? Docs revamp - how have they approached it, why have they done it, where is it going next? How does the entire doc editing and authorship process work at Plaid? And last but not least, how have they incorporated user feedback into the docs process! The host is Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix). Sources: https://plaid.com/blog/new-plaid-docs/ plaid.com/careers

Former technical writer, previously a journalist and now fronted engineer, conference speaker and workshop organizer. Tune in to learn about Carolyn's career journey. How did she transition from journalism to technical writing and how did her previously acquired journalism skills support that journey? Why and how did she become a software engineer? What was her role in the Google Season of Docs program that connects experienced technical writers with the open source community? What does humanizing your documentation mean in practice? How to write a good FAQ page to best support the onboarding process? In this episode we are exploring a new topic that hasn't been touched on yet over the API The Docs podcast series. The host is Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Sources: https://workwithcarolyn.com/ Google - Season of Docs

Today our guests are Liam Gallagher (UX Designer/API Platforms) and Jake Eastham (Front-end Developer and Accessibility Champion) from Barclays: “It's very easy to get caught up in aesthetics, you want to design something that is really cool and you think it is amazing.. You actually want to show it to everyone, but you completely messed up the accessibility part. As I matured, I realised that good design is not about something that looks good, but how something works. A good design is naturally inclusive. “ “An accessibility champion is someone who fosters within their environment, within their own team, while being aware of the different accessibility challenges you have and why we are designing and developing our products, what is the importance of it. “ Join us for an inspiring conversation with the two times winner of DevPortal Awards in the Best Accessible Portal category. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).