I’m honored to be a part of the jury for the 2024 Developer Portal awards.

As part of the jury, I made judgements on 20+ portals in a multiple categories. As a full time Technical Writer, I had limited “bandwidth” to review these portals. And that’s reasonable, as the developers who choose products also have limited “bandwidth.”

I’ve seen developers choose products based on what they learn from developer portals. On the other hand, I’ve seen developers reject products based on the findability of content.

In short, I looked for developer portals that helped me make their products work.

I didn’t want a sales pitch. I didn’t want streams of scattershot emails. I wanted content that could get me to working products, in minutes.

For me, the key was readable “getting started” docs. If I could get the software “working” in 10 minutes, I was motivated to look further. (When you have limited time to make a first impression, speed matters.)

To get to a quick start, I’d look for a well-defined “use case.” I then scanned the documentation. (Even as a writer, I don’t have time to read “everything.”) If it was “clear and concise,” I’d run the commands embedded in those docs. (Yes, sometimes I’d run the commands first.) I appreciated portals that presented potential solutions from command line responses.