Mashape annoyance

Mashape is a popular aggregation service for finding and consuming public APIs.  The process is simple: you browse their extensive list of public APIs and then "consume" the ones you like.  It looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a try the other day.  I signed up for a free account, and clicked the Explore APIs button to look for a service to consume:


I found a popular free weather service and then went to click on the "consume" button.  That's when the trouble began... there is no consume button! ...or add button, or like button, or energize button... (you get the point).

I finally broke down and decided to read their documentation on how to consume an API.  Unfortunately, it just listed a bunch of curl commands I was already familiar with and oauth commands that my free weather service didn't require.  Hmm...  After floundering around a bit, I stumbled onto this screen which mocks me for not being able to consume an API and then gives me a link to "Consume an API"



At last, the holy grail I've been looking for!  Oh wait, the link just takes me to the Browse API screen.  Ugh, back to square one.

After much Internet searching and feeling like an idiot, I finally cracked the secret sauce: you have to test an API to consume it.



IMHO, mashape could use a lesson in Usability 101


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