apidays LIVE Helsinki & North: API Ecosystems - Connecting Physical and Digital March 16 & 17, 2022 Designing Embedded Platforms: Lessons from Industry Success & Failure Jeremy Glassenberg, Product Lead at Docusign

1. Embedded Integration Platforms
(iFrames and Beyond)

2. About me
Founder of the Box developer platform
Early writer for ProgrammableWeb
Managed these platforms
Mentor, advisor, consultant for other developer platforms

3. API Obsession

4. But something was forgotten

5. A lot was forgotten

6. If you build it, they will come

7. When thinking of the user...

8. Success!

9. What have we learned?
Don’t plop iframes where they look cool
Have real use cases

10. HAVE USERS!

11. Thinking outside the iFrame: new options
iFrames
● Free and Flexible
● Security, UX, and performance nightmare
Cards
● Safe and SEcure
● Visually Consistent
● Development Nightmare
Triggers
● Fitting in more places
● Solidify integration workflows
● Complement other features

12. More about iFrames
Free and open With Consequences

13. What to know about cards

14. Combining Technologies

15. Triggers

16. Usability Matters To All Customers
User Experience Developer Experience

17. Embed + APIs

18. & API libraries

19. One-Up: UI Components

20. Dev Experience: Manifests vs Dev UI

21. Brownie Points: Code Hosting

22. Brownie Points: Apps with APIs

23. Brownie Points: Your own Markup Language

24. Security

25. Security: Alleviation for iFrames
allow-forms
allow-popups
allow-pointer-lock
allow-same-origin
allow-scripts
allow-top-navigation
<iframe sandbox="allow-same-origin
allow-scripts allow-popups allow-forms"

26. Security: Watch your Scopes!

27. Looking Forward: AMP?
Mobile-friendly
Safer than iFrame
Not sh^&%y like cards

28. Looking Forward: Standards?
“We’re Still Experimenting”
- Every Manager of an Embed Platform

29. Keep Dreamin!

30. Appendix

31. Embedded APIs
Scope limitations (gdrive, Box)
Special APIs (Trello, G Docs)

32. Business secrets
Manage a blog regardless of whether people read it
Forums before you’re popular is a really bad idea.
Same with developer events
Hackathons are great! For recruiting
https://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/4-new-types-of-hackathon-recruiting-strategies/

33. Side note: PM for integrations
This took 11 tries.
3 worked.
1 was usable.
And you don’t want to know how it actually worked.