How To Design APIs For Mobile

Mobile apps are a critical channel for customer engagement and business process improvement, and it's clear that mobile apps need APIs to access business data and transactions. The problem for application development and delivery (AD&D) pros is how to design these APIs. The time-to-market pressure on delivering mobile apps may lead to a short-term focus to merely deliver something that works. This is a mistake, because it will shortchange the role of mobile APIs in an organization's omnichannel strategy, and its wider goals of agility and consistency across processes, customers, and partners. Building on Forrester's four-tier engagement platform model, this report provides 14 key guidelines for the process, practices, and design principles that place mobile APIs into an omnichannel and enterprise context. AD&D pros can use these as a basis for API layering and design collaboration that supports top-quality mobile apps while also fostering future business agility.