# DX Assessment

A DX Assessment is Emmanuel Paraskakis's enterprise engagement that audits a company's API developer experience across four stages — Discover, Learn, Succeed, Retain — and delivers a report with prioritized, actionable recommendations. It's aimed at companies with 10+ public or partner APIs where developer friction is costing adoption, support load, or partner revenue.

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## Why it matters

Most companies find out their developer experience is broken from support tickets and abandoned integrations, not from a structured audit. A DX Assessment inverts that — it goes looking for the friction before it shows up as churn or unusable partner integrations, using the same four-stage lens (Discover → Learn → Succeed → Retain) that Emmanuel teaches for evaluating any API's developer experience.

The assessment produces a full report with prioritized recommendations, not just a diagnosis. That distinction matters for enterprise buyers: a list of problems without a sequenced fix plan is much less actionable than a report that says what to fix first and why.

## How to apply it

The 4-stage lens, applied to your own API before you'd ever need a formal assessment:

1. **Discover** — can a developer find your API and understand what it does in the first few minutes?
2. **Learn** — do your docs, examples, and quickstart get a developer to a working call quickly?
3. **Succeed** — does a developer reach their actual integration goal, not just a "hello world" call?
4. **Retain** — does the developer keep using your API, or do they hit a wall and churn?

Use the [API Developer Experience Canvas](https://maven.com/emmanuel/o/34c449) (Miro template) to self-score your own product against this funnel before commissioning a formal assessment.

### FAQ

**Who is a DX Assessment for?** Companies with a meaningful public or partner API surface (10+ APIs is Emmanuel's rough threshold) where developer adoption friction is a known but unquantified problem.

**What do I get from a DX Assessment?** A full report benchmarking your developer experience across the Discover → Learn → Succeed → Retain funnel, with prioritized, actionable recommendations, not just a list of issues.

**How much does a DX Assessment cost?** Engagement pricing is confirmed in conversation.

**Is this the same as a DX Assessment tool or self-serve product?** No, this is a consulting engagement led by Emmanuel personally, distinct from the self-assessment tools planned for the website (which feed into, and are a lighter-weight version of, this same 4-stage framework).

**What's the difference between a DX Assessment and an API Design Review?** A DX Assessment looks at the developer's end-to-end experience of adopting and succeeding with your API. An API Design Review is a narrower, earlier-stage gate focused on catching design and implementation issues before they ship.

Source: Level 250 — https://www.level250.com/glossary/dx-assessment