Developer Advocacy for Native Mobile Platforms

Considerations for building communities and serving developers on iOS and Android

1. Bear Douglas Dev Rel Lead, Twitter | @beardigsit Developer Advocacy for Native Mobile: What’s Different?
2. Hi, I’m Bear! Hi, I’m Bear. I work on Fabric, used to work on Parse and before that FB platform. I also run community for the SF Ember.js meetup.
3. Mobile Is Growing App Store - 1.5M apps as of June ‘15 Google Play - 2M apps as of Feb ‘16 Source: Statista
4. But where are the people?
6. Even specifying that this is a mobile conference, you don’t get all mobile developers. You get lots of people who are interested in general- it’s hard to attract a strictly targeted audience.
7. Challenges For Native Mobile Community • There are just fewer of us. • The platforms are still new(ish)
8. Android Getting Started, 2010
9. Challenges For Native Mobile Community • There are just fewer of us. • The platforms are still new(ish)… so there aren’t lots of experts • “Authoritative” resources can be hard to find
10. So what’s to do?
11. 5 things
12. 1 Meet people where they are
13. Find the native conferences that are specifically about the language or the platform. “Mobile” conferences are too broad.
14. What about hackathons?
16. Meetups are your friend
17. Segment your docs WRITE FOR DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE LEVELS 2 What does this mean? It means that you can’t just teach your own content, you have to make your stuff a working guide to best practices on the platform
18. 3 Levels Of Documentation • API Reference • Guides • Tutorials
19. Reference Docs IN IDE example
20. Reference Docs
21. Guides
22. Tutorials
23. Invest in Shippable Sample Code 3 PRODUCT TUTORIALS = PLATFORM TUTORIALS
24. if you’re working somewhere, you can learn from other people’s code. if you’re on your own, you need to read someone else’s production code to learn from
27. If it was trivial to write, it’s probably trivially helpful This is not always bad- a small, simple sample that is easy to read and show a single feature has utility. But there is a huge need for complex, best-practice sample apps.
28. This gives you a chance to show people things they wouldn’t know about otherwise- in an Android app, use Protobuf, e.g.
30. 4 RTFM? NOT SO MUCH. Support is a teaching opportunity
32. Hard not to feel like this, but have to resist
34. Guidelines For Making This Reasonable • Educate directly where the issue is simple • Looks like you need to fix ___. It’s a problem because ____. Try ___. • Refer where there’s something more complex to learn • You hit your [Dex method limit](link to Android docs) • Set community standards about what’s OK to leave Invest in teaching, but don’t be a martyr to the volume- decide what’s reasonable to take on education-wise and then do it well
35. 5 Tie It Together HELP OUTLINE THE BIGGER PICTURE
37. 3 takeaways
38. 1. Meet developers where they are - and where they learn
39. 2. Create docs and samples for audiences at multiple skill levels
40. 3. Investing in leveling up the community is a win for everyone
41. Thank You @beardigsit