What should I document? A preliminary systematic mapping study into API documentation knowledge

TL;DR

This paper presents a systematic mapping study that synthesizes existing research on API documentation quality into a five-dimensional taxonomy, highlighting key constructs that contribute to effective API documentation.

Contribution

It develops a structured taxonomy based on 21 studies, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding API documentation knowledge and guiding future research and practice.

Findings

Usage description details are highly valued in API documentation.

Most studies use field techniques like interviews and documentation analysis.

The taxonomy consolidates key recommendations into five categories.

Abstract

Background: Good API documentation facilities the development process, improving productivity and quality. While the topic of API documentation quality has been of interest for the last two decades, there have been few studies to map the specific constructs needed to create a good document. In effect, we still need a structured taxonomy against which to capture knowledge. Aims: This study reports emerging results of a systematic mapping study. We capture key conclusions from previous studies that assess API documentation quality, and synthesise the results into a single framework. Method: By conducting a systematic review of 21 key works, we have developed a five dimensional taxonomy based on 34 categorised weighted recommendations. Results: All studies utilise field study techniques to arrive at their recommendations, with seven studies employing some form of interview and questionnaire, and four conducting documentation analysis. The taxonomy we synthesise reinforces that usage description details (code snippets, tutorials, and reference documents) are generally highly weighted as helpful in API documentation, in addition to design rationale and presentation. Conclusions: We propose extensions to this study aligned to developer's utility for each of the taxonomy's categories.