Human-centered design is a common phrase these days in the software product world. Taking a human-centered design approach means starting with the people you’re designing for and designing and building your solution alongside them, with empathy and iteration. This can feel foreign or challenging to an API team, and especially for a product team that also happens to maintain an API: after all, aren’t we building for applications, for machines, rather than for humans?

In this talk, we’ll discuss how to reframe this perspective, connect with your users, and better build APIs for and with humans. From working with product managers and designers who are new to thinking about your API as a product, to getting first-hand user feedback and acting on it as a systematic part of your product lifecycle, we’ll cover strategy and real-world tactics for applying human-centered design thinking to your API, no matter where you are on the product journey.