Where imagination comes from

Have I ever told you about something I heard over and over again when I was at ProgrammableWeb?

The first time someone said it, I nodded along… it seemed reasonable enough.

But eventually, it became a joke.

A company would brief me about its new API… and they’d share exactly zero ideas about how it could be used.

“We don’t want to hold back the imagination of developers!”

Again, that seems fine the first time you hear it. But then you hear it again and again… and watch these companies not get traction with their APIs…

With a little inspiration, developers can be plenty imaginative.

One place that comes from is use cases: ideas about how developers can use your product.

I decided to look at how database companies showcase the possibilities… these are like the blank canvas of developer products.

In the use cases for databases gallery, you can see examples from Firebase, Mongo, Elastic, and more.

It’s been nearly 15 years since some of those ProgrammableWeb briefings and I think we’ve come a long way. See what you can pull from these use cases pages and include them in your own work.