API development is typically a complex process dominated by engineers. Technical expertise is crucial, but creating successful APIs also requires a deep understanding of business objectives and user needs. A design-first approach is essential to bridging the gap between technical and non-technical teams.
SwaggerHub's new Form Editor is a game changer. The new feature is enhanced with functionality integrated from Stoplight, offering a visual, code-free interface that empowers everyone – from developers to product managers – to collaborate on API design. Let’s explore how this innovative tool can help you deliver better APIs faster.
Watch the Video Overview
Before we dive into the details, check out this video by Frank Kilcommins, SmartBear’s Principal API Technical Evangelist, as he walks through the key features and benefits of the new Form Editor in SwaggerHub:
Understanding the Challenges
API development often excludes non-technical stakeholders due to the complexity of technical requirements and specifications. This limited involvement can lead to communication gaps between critical stakeholders, ultimately delaying project timelines and compromising API quality. These challenges are more than just inconveniences – they can significantly impact a product's success, leading to costly rework and a fragmented development process.
The Power of Visual Collaboration
SwaggerHub’s new Form Editor streamlines API design, making it accessible to non-technical users by removing the need to interact directly with JSON/YAML or OpenAPI. The intuitive interface organizes API assets clearly, from paths and models to query parameters, simplifying complex API concepts. Users can easily edit API descriptions, manage schemas, and validate models with built-in governance rules. This empowers a broader range of roles within your organization to contribute meaningfully to API design, breaking down silos and fostering collaboration without necessarily knowing the complexities of the OpenAPI syntax.
Breaking Down Silos with Visual Collaboration
The Form Editor is designed to foster collaboration by visually representing API designs, enabling product managers, business analysts, and designers to play an active role. They can review and suggest changes, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
Additionally, for teams using a code-first approach, the form editor empowers technical writers to enrich the code-generated OpenAPI descriptions, adding valuable context and detail. While Form Editor can help with a code-first approach, it shows its true prowess when using a design-first workflow, helping to avoid miscommunication and late-stage project changes.
Accelerating Time-to-Market
A design-first approach, enabled by the Form Editor, can significantly speed up API development. By involving all stakeholders early in the process, teams can align on the API design before any code is written, reducing the need for rework and minimizing errors. This early alignment translates to faster development cycles and quicker time-to-market, giving your product a competitive edge.
Enhancing API Quality and User Experience
A visual design process leads to better API quality and user experience by making it easier to identify potential issues early in the development cycle. The Form Editor allows users to create and edit rich examples for responses, set up API templates, and enforce standardization, ensuring consistency and quality across all APIs. This level of detail helps create APIs that are intuitive and easy to consume, enhancing the overall user experience. Additionally, a visual interface makes sure that API designers can focus on API quality rather than trying to fix OpenAPI syntax issues.
Feature Breakdown
SwaggerHub’s Form Editor supports a wide range of OpenAPI features including but not limited to reusable components, a powerful schema editor, schema combiners, and x-extensions. It also comes with a markdown editor allowing to write rich descriptions.
The use of Form Editor doesn’t mean power users within the organization cannot stick to using the code editor – changes are synced real time between the two interfaces and users can switch seamlessly between the two.
Additionally, the Form Editor can be used to edit templates – a popular SwaggerHub construct to share templated OpenAPI documents for designers to get started with – and domains – SwaggerHub's take on sharing components like parameters, requests, responses and schemas across multiple APIs.
Try It Out Today
SwaggerHub's Form Editor is more than just a tool; it's a catalyst for transforming the way APIs are designed and developed. By creating a collaborative, visual environment that bridges the gap between technical and non-technical teams, it enables you to build higher-quality APIs faster. As we continue to enhance this tool, the Form Editor will become an essential part of your API development process, improving both the quality of your APIs and the overall user experience. Try SwaggerHub's new Form Editor today.