Having an awareness of why your API consumers will be applying your digital resources and integrating capabilities into their systems helps you ground your road map. Being honest about the incentives behind API consumption will help keep you from wasting time and resources.
To develop your understanding of why your consumers are using an API, make sure you reach out and talk to your consumers. There is no better way to understand the incentives behind the business and engineering of your consumers than asking them, something many API providers are hesitant to do. Don’t be afraid–talk to them.
You should now have the who, what how, and why of the consumers of your APIs, either hypothetically or through direct communication with your API consumers. Either way, you should have what you need to properly design this version of your aPI, which is something you can evolve on over time, so don’t worry about getting it right today.