Validation

As introduced in Chapter 4, validation is one of the steps in the API design stage. Its goal is to confirm assumptions and make sure that the API product is designed according to what stakeholders expect. You engage in the validation process and make any necessary changes until you reach a point where you can confirm that your API design is solid. The idea is to involve stakeholders, including potential API consumers, so that they can give you feedback early on. You start with a high-level approach where you attempt to validate the architectural style and the API capabilities. Once you have positive feedback, you go deeper and perform a low-level validation where you gather information on how potential users interact with your API. Let’s start by exploring the high-level validation approach.

The goal of high-level validation is to obtain feedback from stakeholders about abstract concepts that define how your API will behave. The feedback you get helps you understand...