The Most Often-Used Sections Of API Documentation
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The Most Often-Used Sections Of API Documentation
Study identifies the components of docs developers rely on to put a new API to work
In How Developers Use API Documentation: An Observation Study, Meng, Steinhardt, and Schubert examine which resources developers use to put a new API to work. The most often accessed content is the API Reference, followed by the Recipes page, they found.
The Recipes page (and the Samples page) are places where devs obtain code samples for use cases. Some devs use the Concepts page, but less so than other areas of the docs, especially those pages that contain code samples. In contrast, some developers (systematic learners) use the Concepts pages extensively.