Maeve Breslin
This payments company faced a major hurdle—a developer portal that frustrated users, slowed integrations, and risked prospect churn.
This developer portal transformation simplifies complexity, prioritises the developer experience and provides a curated, relevant service catalogue to facilitate rapid integrations.
A Portal That Undermined Confidence
The developer portal was working against us. Documentation was scattered, outdated, and hard to navigate — with key integration steps hidden in PDFs and Notion pages. Developers couldn’t self-serve, and sales flagged it as a blocker during technical evaluation.
Broken Journeys, No Clear Ownership
We audited the portal and mapped key developer flows — from onboarding to sandbox testing. Core paths were missing, duplicated, or out of sync with the product. No team owned the full experience, and most content had no defined owner, so updates were inconsistent and reactive.
From Static Docs to a Real Developer Experience
We shifted perspective: the portal wasn’t just documentation — it was part of the product. We defined key journeys, assigned internal owners, and focused on clarity, not just coverage.
Structure That Could Scale
We rebuilt from the ground up using a modular CMS, structured content types, and an IA aligned to real-world implementation flows — creating a credible, maintainable experience that could grow with the platform.
Driving Sales & Enabling Developers
Problem
It was unclear what features and information developers need when evaluating payment processors. Project risked lacking critical features that could help differentiate our offerings from competitors.
Strategy & Approach
To solve this, I identified that RFPs and RFIs, which are procurement documents, were a valuable source of information and could be analysed. Secondly, I leveraged customer facing team's technical customer contacts so that I could understand their journey.
Results
The analysis provided clear guidance on essential features, such as detailed API documentation and security information. These insights informed the development of a more competitive and customer-focused developer portal, enhancing our market position.
What contitutes a great developer portal?
Problem
We needed a clear understanding of how our developer portal compared to competitors' offerings to ensure we provided superior features and a better user experience.
Strategy and Approach
I conducted a comprehensive competitive analysis to identify strengths and weaknesses in competing developer portals. Criteria was elucidated by reviewing the developer portal awards website for "Best in Class"
Results
These insights informed targeted enhancements to our developer portal roadmap, ultimately revealing our existing strengths and exploitable weaknesses of competitors.
"Imagine you're Assessing a Payments Provider..."
Problem
Recruiting external developers for research was challenging, given the unusual background required and expense of reaching such users. This risked developing features that might not fully align with user expectations.
Strategy and Approach:
I decided to leverage internal developers who could provide valuable insights. This allowed us to still gather relevant feedback and ensure that our developer portal was aligned with real-world use cases.
Results
The research provided crucial insights, such as the importance of clear and concise API documentation, intuitive navigation, and robust error handling examples.
Maintaining privacy while showcasing capabilities
Problem
The development environments were complex, making it hard for team members and stakeholders to understand how everything worked together, which could lead to confusion and mistakes
Strategy and Approach
To make things clearer, I used visual maps to show how different parts of the environment interacted and created low-fidelity flows to outline user journeys in a simple, easy-to-understand way.
Results
The visual maps and low-fidelity flows helped the team better understand the environment and user workflows. This led to better teamwork, fewer misunderstandings, and helped us spot potential issues early on. As a result, we were able to develop a more user-friendly system more efficiently.
Prioritising key information without overwhelm
Problem
Content in this context really matters- there was a need to establish a clear and effective structure to ensure users could easily find relevant information and navigate smoothly.
Strategy and Approach
I used site mapping to design the information architecture from scratch, aiming to create a logical flow of content that meets user needs and business goals.
Results
The final site map established a strong foundation for the new site’s information architecture, making it easy for users to navigate and find what they need. This well-organised structure improved user satisfaction and supported the overall goals of the site.
Balancing Sales & Developer Needs Through Progressive Disclosure
Problem
Before design started, I wanted to ensure we were building the right thing. Developer portals can be massive, and are critical in the sales process. We were aiming for an "MVP" but I wanted to ensure a scaleable experience.
Strategy and Approach
Create the lowest fidelity wireframe possible to validate feature functionality, begin creating layout, navigation and design required wireframes to get a head start on high fidelity.
Results
The wireframes provided a clear blueprint for the design and development teams. This process helped streamline design and development and resulted in a more effective final design.
Outcomes
I enhanced the developer experience by streamlining access to API resources and sandbox environments, improving usability and receiving positive feedback on the portal’s design and functionality. Effectively showcased API capabilities, helping developers better understand and utilize the technology. Additionally, provided successful integration support by offering clear documentation and resources, making it easier to implement complex payment solutions.
Lessons Learned
This project highlighted the importance of continuous user engagement and iterative design. By maintaining a close feedback loop with developers, we were able to identify critical pain points early and adapt our strategy accordingly. This approach ensured that the final product was not only functional but also met the evolving needs of our diverse user base.