API Management
Role:
Lead Product Designer
Year:
/ 2025 - 2026
Team Size:
10
Designing a scalable way for Admins to create, configure, and manage API Applications.
Building a foundation for API access
API Management gives FreeWheel Admin users a centralized place to create and manage API Applications. These applications allow internal teams and external partners to build on FreeWheel APIs.
Admins are responsible for configuring application permissions, granting access, managing credentials, and maintaining applications throughout their lifecycle.
API Management isn't just about creating an application. It's about managing everything that happens after it.
Objectives:
What were we trying to achieve?
01
Simplify API Access Management
Create a centralized experience for managing API Applications throughout their lifecycle.
02
Make Complex Permissions Scalable
Give Admins granular control while making a growing permission structure easier to understand.
Process overview:
From mapping the ecosystem to building the system.
Map the ecosystem
Understand the existing workflows, access model, and pain points.
1
Explore the permission model
Use research, competitive analysis, and iteration to find a scalable approach.
2
Validate the experience
Test concepts and refine the interaction model.
3
Build the system
Translate the validated model into the broader API Management experience.
4
API access was fragmented across the ecosystem
Before designing the new experience, I mapped how API Applications were created, configured, and granted access across the existing product ecosystem.
Managing API access required navigating multiple products, permissions, and handoffs.
The opportunity was bigger than redesigning individual screens. We needed a clearer model for managing an API Application from creation through ongoing access.
How do we ake complex API permissions manageable?
API Applications could require access to multiple APIs and methods, creating a permission model that was powerful but difficult to navigate.
What I looked at
The goal wasn't to remove complexity - it was to organize it.
Finding the right model for permissions
I explored multiple ways to structure API permissions, balancing granular control with a simple mental model for Admins.
100+ iterations
I explored different approaches before narrowing down to a model that could scale with the API ecosystem.
Exploring Hierarchy
Early concepts exposed the full hierarchy, but this created too much information at once.
Exploring Grouping
I explored grouping APIs by theme and function to create a more predictable navigation model.
Exploring Edition
I've explored how users can edit the permissions.
Exploring the permission model
As part of the broader API Management experience, I explored different ways to structure and select API permissions. After narrowing down the direction, I tested the proposed model with users to validate the hierarchy and interaction patterns.
testing helped validate
Feedback from testing informed the final refinements to the permission experience before I brought it into the broader API Management flow.
Final Experience
A centralized API Application lifecycle
Create & Configure an application
The core flow
Manage API Access
Making permissions visible after setup
Manage Credentials
Supporting the application after access is granted
Together, these workflows created a more centralized and scalable way for Admins to manage API application from creation through ongoing access management.
From a new experience to an active API ecosystem
The launch moved API Management from a redesigned experience into an actively used area of the platform. Since going GA in July, more than 20 API Applications have been created for client internal use and partner integrations, alongside growing inbound interest from organizations looking to become FreeWheel partners and build their own API integrations.
20+
API applications created since GA
Growing partner interest
Increased inbound interest from partners
What I learned
Designing API Management pushed me to think beyond individual workflows and consider how applications, permissions, access, and credentials work together as a system. The result was an experience designed to scale alongside a growing API ecosystem.
Thanks for reading
