June 3, 2025 • 22 mins
In this discussion, Cristina sits down with Faria Anzum, Developer Experience Product Design Lead at Canva, to explore her approach to SaaS integrations, developer experience, as well as the impact of AI on building scalable partner ecosystems.
Faria’s Role and Canva’s Ecosystem Approach
Faria leads developer experience within Canva’s ecosystem team, focusing on optimizing the end-to-end journey for developers—from discovery and documentation to app submission and launch. Her work spans both external developers and internal teams, ensuring feedback loops that drive continuous improvement in tooling and processes.
Building for Developers: Key UX Considerations
- Faria highlights the importance of systems thinking in developer experience, noting that every design decision impacts multiple stages of the developer journey.
- Unique challenges include blending Canva’s established design system with the distinct UIs of external apps, ensuring a seamless and intuitive experience for users.
- Developer tools must minimize cognitive load and context switching, so Canva strives for consistency across documentation, tooling, and theming to reduce friction for developers moving between environments.
Best Practices for Scalable Integrations
- Canva empowers partners to build at scale by providing robust building blocks: app templates, design patterns, and a comprehensive Figma UI kit. This approach streamlines development and ensures consistency in user experience.
- The team collaborates closely with partners through workshops and design reviews, fostering high-quality integrations and reducing surprises during app submission.
- Smaller partners particularly benefit from these resources, as they can rely on Canva’s design guidance without needing in-house expertise.
AI’s Transformative Role in Developer Workflows
- AI is lowering barriers to entry, democratizing software development much like Canva did for design. Tools like ChatGPT and Cursor enable even non-coders to build functional integrations using natural language prompts.
- Canva recently launched Dev MCP server, for Canva apps and integrations, leveraging documentation and starter templates to accelerate development.
- While Canva can’t always distinguish how much of an app is AI-generated, the focus remains on functionality and quality, not the origin of the code.
Looking Ahead: Trust, Transparency, and the Future of AI in Integrations
- Faria emphasizes the need for transparency in AI-driven apps—clearly communicating what AI does, how data is used, and allowing users to override AI suggestions to build trust.
- She predicts a future where AI agents handle more of the integration lifecycle, spinning up apps from natural language descriptions, while human developers refine and innovate at the edges.
- The conversation closes with a call to embrace these changes, as AI and automation free up developers to focus on more creative and high-impact work.
Key Takeaways
- Canva’s approach to developer experience centers on holistic design, strong building blocks, and close collaboration with partners.
- AI is fundamentally changing how integrations are built, making development more accessible and efficient.
- Trust, transparency, and adaptability will be crucial as AI-driven workflows become the norm in SaaS ecosystems.
For more insights on tech partnerships, integrations, and APIs, listeners are encouraged to visit Pandium’s blog and resources.
https://www.pandium.com/blog
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Between Product and Partnerships, a
podcast focused on bringingtogether product, partnership,
and engineering leaders todiscuss how to build, support,
and scale SaaS ecosystems.
This podcast is presented byPandium, an integration platform
for building nativeintegrations.
SPEAKER_02 (00:16):
Hello, everyone, and thanks for tuning in to our
podcast Between Product andPartnerships.
If you're just checking us outfor the first time, we talk
about the challenges and what ittakes to build integrations and
tech partnerships and SaaSplatforms in general.
We like to talk to leaders likewe have today, working on these
problems and learn about thetrends and what they're doing to
(00:38):
navigate the space.
Today, I'm so excited to introFaria Anzum, who is a developer
experience product designleader.
lead at Canva.
Maybe Faria, if you can give alittle bit of background about
yourself and what kind of workyou do within the ecosystem
space and then we can kick itoff.
SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
Yeah, sure.
Thanks for having me, Christina.
So I'm a product designer hereat Canva and I look after like
the developer experience withinour ecosystem team.
So ecosystem is a super groupwithin Canva and we have various
teams like the app experiences,developer experiences where I'm
in, APIs team, and yeah, I'mpart of the developer experience
(01:16):
and developer experience isabout like the entire journey a
developer goes through so fromlike discovery so like
discovering our platform todocumentation building their
apps or integration and thensubmitting it and finally
launching their product with usin the marketplace then we also
have I also look after like theinternal tooling for our team so
(01:38):
like the review tooling and anyother admin tooling that helps
facilitate communication withthe developers and And yeah, so
my job is to like make sure thewhole process is efficient and
smooth, as smooth as possible.
And prior to this team, I wasalways in like the ecosystem
where I looked after like thestrategic partner apps and
(02:00):
integrations.
And we focused on very niche,specialized apps, bringing them
into our platform.
SPEAKER_02 (02:08):
Can you share more about what like the niche apps
were?
Like just what that means insort of Canva land?
UNKNOWN (02:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:14):
One example that comes to my mind is like the
Monday.com app, the Asana appthat you can see within Canva or
outside of Canva, for example,the Google Workspace add-on.
We work very closely withpartners when building some of
these integrations or Salesforceintegrations, for instance, that
allows you to, within Salesforceenvironment, easily have Canva
(02:34):
in there and generate a designwithout leaving the platform.
So our team looked after that.
SPEAKER_02 (02:40):
Got it.
And that's interesting.
I use the word like native Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(03:14):
use the API like a partner does,they're like, oh, I should maybe
like fix some of this stuff.
I hope that wasn't your case foryou, but it definitely, I've
seen it.
SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
Yeah, it's always the case.
SPEAKER_02 (03:25):
Yes.
All right.
So we can dive right in.
Thank you for the background.
So to kick it off, what do youlike about working on developer
experience?
SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
So when it comes to developerexperience, I really like the
opportunity that it gives me tothink strategically.
I really like system thinking.
So designing for developers isjust not about like building in
isolation.
It requires thinkingholistically across like the
entire developer journey.
So every decision that you makecan affect multiple parts of the
(03:55):
experience.
So the initial discovery and allthe way through submission and
review, and I really enjoyedthat end-to-end process.
And another thing I enjoy isdevelopers can be really vocal
as audience and they genuinelyvalue good developer experience,
like good design and usabilityAnd they're quite proactive.
(04:16):
One thing that I am lucky isthat here at Canva, our users
are developers.
They're everywhere.
Like I'm working with them everyday internally, in-house.
So I always get feedback fromthem and it keeps things moving.
So yeah, that's what I enjoy.
SPEAKER_02 (04:34):
You get to talk to a lot of external developers, like
folks that are using your work.
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
Yeah.
So yes, I get to talk.
We have like our discoursecommunity where we can like chat
with developer anytime.
We also have like have, forexample, like events where we
meet our developers.
One of the developer actuallylike came to Sydney last month
and he was like, hey, can wehave a chat?
And I was like, yeah, sure.
And I invited him to have acoffee in Canva.
(05:03):
So yeah, that was great.
And yeah, we can reach out tothem anytime.
And we have an active communityof developer members who are
really passionate about givingus feedback.
SPEAKER_02 (05:12):
Yeah, I think it's fun to sell software that
software designers or developersuse because they always have
really good feedback, in myexperience.
We here at Pandium work withproduct engineering folks,
sometimes designers, but it'smostly different kinds of
engineers.
But we know if they have a pieceof feedback that it's actually
(05:33):
really well thought out andthere's a good reason for it,
which makes our product teamlife's a lot easier because they
have a lot of good feedback forus because they use the product
every day.
SPEAKER_03 (05:46):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (05:48):
To kind of keep going down that track, what do
you think are the unique UXconsiderations to consider when
you're building anintegration-driven product or
something for developerexperience versus something for
a different kind of user?
SPEAKER_01 (06:03):
Yeah, that's a really great question.
Yes.
So when it comes to...
The challenges that I see iscombining the two distinct
experiences together.
So in Canva, we have ourestablished design system, our
users are used to like thebutton being purple or the text
(06:24):
being like Canva font.
And the external app might haveits own distinct UI, right?
So how do you combine thosetogether for our shared users so
that it feels seamless?
That's like a big challenge thatwe always need to consider.
And as a designer, I have tofigure out how to blend this
black pattern so that it feelsunified and intuitive and never
(06:47):
confusing or disjoint.
I think another design challengewould be particularly in
developer experience is thecontext switching.
So Developers typically, theyjuggle between multiple tools at
the same time, like IDE,terminal, version control,
browser, debugging console, etcetera.
So that cognitive load is realand there's like that constant
(07:09):
context switching.
So we strive to reduce frictionwherever possible.
So for example, one simple thingcould be like having a
consistent theming across likeall like our documentation to
like the tooling that wecontrol, maybe like theme.
which I assume many developerswould use.
(07:30):
And we have also seen that inour developer community.
Having that concept, that atleast like would go a long way
to reduce strain, for example.
So it's all about creatingsmooth experience as developers
move between Canva environmentand their own development tool.
So yeah, those are the two thatcomes to my mind.
SPEAKER_02 (07:52):
Got it.
And talk to pivot a little bitinto something that I'm really
interested in.
And then we'll talk about AI alittle bit for the second part
of this.
I know you have from yourprevious work, your work on your
previous team at Canva workingwith the integration's
specifically.
Do you have any best practicesin building scalable partner
integrations?
SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
Yes.
So when it comes to scalable,it's about how might we empower
our partners to build at scale.
And we do that by providingbuilding blocks.
So for instance, over the years,we now have three app templates
that allows you to plug and playyour platform.
Then we have the app patterns sothat You don't need to like
(08:37):
worry about how if you need to,if your app is going to meet
like our design guidelines, ifit's going to meet like the
review criteria, you can justlike use them as building
blocks.
And we also have like our FigmaUI kit that allows you to like
design your app before you bringinto production.
So these are some honorablemention that comes to my mind
(08:59):
that we have done over theyears.
And there are so many more thatwe are working on.
So provide I think greatbuilding blocks is one way to
look into it.
The Figma file sounds cool.
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (09:13):
That just sounds interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, tell me a little bit moreabout that, like how you guys
work with a tool like Figma tohelp your partners build apps
that you're happy with.
UNKNOWN (09:25):
That's fine.
SPEAKER_01 (09:27):
So yeah, we see like what are like the sum of the
common submission coming in fromthe developers.
So if we see like we are gettingone thing, for example, like we
have a consistent error messagesand a style to display error
message across all the apps orthe empty state, they should
look and feel the same acrossany app you're in.
(09:49):
So if you bring like an emptystate, that's from an external
app in Canva and they all lookdifferent, it might confuse the
user.
So we provide those basicscreens to our developers within
Figma so that they know, so thatthey don't need to like worry
about bringing them orrebuilding them.
They can just consider on likethe key screens.
(10:10):
So that's one thing.
And we work in collaborationwith our partner.
That's like very critical.
So like they provide feedback.
We run workshops, design reviewsback in my time in the partner
apps and integrations team.
So that feedback leads to highquality app that's going to
scale.
(10:30):
So Tight collaboration meansfewer surprises and better
outcome.
Yeah, TLDR would be providingstrong building blocks,
guidelines and partnershiporiented approach to make sure
like we have consistent quality,even as our ecosystem scales
significantly.
SPEAKER_02 (10:47):
I love the idea of providing like actual designs
versus I know a lot of companieswill do like a style guide or a
component library, which isgood.
But having like the real likethis is what I want an empty
state to look like would besuper helpful for.
Yeah, I'm sure they deeplyappreciate it, especially
smaller ones where like theymaybe don't want to or don't
(11:08):
have in-house designers.
They can just do whatever youguys say and make it make your
lives a lot easier.
Cool.
So let's talk about what is onthe tip of everybody's tongue,
AI.
And it sounds like you've gotsome thoughts on that, too.
So.
I guess more generally, like howis AI influencing your partners
and the developer workflows thatthey use for building
(11:30):
integrations for you guys?
SPEAKER_01 (11:31):
AI is definitely game changing.
And I think it's a veryincredible time to be in the
industry.
So we're seeing like tools likeChatGPT, Cursor, Cloud.
So that allows you to likegenerate complete code snippet
from scratch, like the languageand even like an entire feature.
What that tells us is there islike a lower barrier to entry,
(11:53):
which can turn like anyone intodeveloper overnight.
So like my mom can be adeveloper if she doesn't need to
know how to code.
So in a way, it's wheredemocratizing technology the
software development, similar tolike how Canva democratized
design.
So like what that tells us islike, we need to think carefully
about like how our platformsupports these new tools for
(12:16):
developers.
For example, recently welaunched the Canva Dev MCP that
allows you to be in cursor oryour favorite AI tool and just
build apps with us easily.
The cursor agent can read ourdocumentation and helps you get
like, it gets like the templatefrom the library as a starter
(12:36):
kit.
And then you can just previewyour app all within cursor
without moving and all fromnatural language.
And that's crazy how we'reassessing how AI can assist in
every step of like the developerjourney.
So whether by like helpinggenerate the starter code or
configuring setting or catchingany potential errors early on,
or there can be like many more.
(12:58):
that hopefully you'll see in theupcoming days.
So it's about making thatprocess easier and faster and
more accessible for our devs.
So yeah, I think we're in a veryfascinating time in the history.
A century ago, we had humansthat were literally computers
SPEAKER_03 (13:15):
And
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
we didn't have the concept of software developers
because, yeah, and now we're ata place where anyone can
automate tasks, buildintegrations.
SPEAKER_02 (13:30):
So yeah, I think it's like the next industrial
revolution.
So I can imagine that, you know,using AI, whether it's MCP or
just using, you know, a cursorkind of vanilla, you guys would
(13:53):
be a good company to work with,a good system to work with
because you have all of theseinputs already, right?
You know, AI can, the LLM stuffcan be a little bit more dodgy
when there's not a lot to feedit, you know, like it's going to
go look for the templates, lookfor the documentation that's
been on the internet for awhile.
And if you guys already havethat and you've built, you know,
(14:14):
the MCP functionalities, Likethat definitely, I could see
that giving folks a real leg up.
Do you, I don't know if there'sany way for you guys to know,
like how much of an app is beingbuilt with that versus, you
know, like if there's like apercent, like if someone submits
a new app to you, I don't, isthere a way for you to tell?
There may not be a way for youto tell if it's like 50% of it
(14:36):
was built by a human and 50% ofit was built by a cursor or
something like that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:40):
Oh, that would be a great idea.
We don't have that at themoment.
SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
Yeah.
I mean, I think that that'sactually probably the point,
right?
Is that you can't tell thedifference necessarily, like as
long as it works.
Exactly.
That's kind of, yeah, that'swhat I find to be really
interesting about, you know,using AI and generative code
kind of functionality is thatthere is a, there is like a
rubber meets the road momentwhere it's either going to work
(15:04):
or it's not going to work versussome things that are like more
subjective that, you know, ifyou're asking chat GPT for its
opinion about something, or ifit's a kind of inserting its
opinion about
SPEAKER_03 (15:16):
something,
SPEAKER_02 (15:17):
you know, with coding, it's like, you either
are able to run it and it doesthe thing that you want it to do
or not.
And for you guys, I'm sure youhave some sort of app approval
process and stuff that folkshave to go through.
So whatever can drive down theamount of effort while still
maintaining the functionality,it doesn't matter where that
code came from as long as thething works.
(15:40):
When did you guys launch thecursor support?
I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_01 (15:45):
Yes, yes, yes.
It was just last month.
So very recently.
Yeah, very recently.
Cool.
Have
SPEAKER_02 (15:51):
you guys seen any changes in the way apps are
submitted since then?
It hasn't been very long, soprobably
SPEAKER_01 (15:58):
not.
It hasn't been very long, butI'm very curious to see how
people use it.
We designers, we're just usingit.
I tried out when our engineerjust launched.
I was in my computer trying outCursor.
I don't know how to code, and Icould just generate the app from
Cursor.
So that was cool.
SPEAKER_02 (16:17):
That's so cool.
Yeah.
I mean, I, transparently, I alsoam not a programmer.
I, like you, probably knowenough to be dangerous, but I
don't write code myself.
But I think every company hastheir finger on the pulse there
and is also looking for ways tonot replace humans, but to make
people faster and get rid ofthat boilerplate stuff.
And the way that we think aboutit internally, the way that I
(16:40):
think about it, is it'sreplacing Stack Overflow.
Instead of going through abillion posts and trying to find
an answer, sometimes it will beable to provide you with that
answer immediately.
And again, as long as you'redoing proper QA and you're
testing it and validating thatit works, I think everyone wants
to do less boilerplate stuff.
(17:00):
Exactly.
And that goes back to the designtoo.
I didn't realize that you guysactually provided that level of
design guidance.
Like that's really, I'm going tohave to go back and look at your
docs now and see if I could findsome of that.
It's cool.
It's cool.
Like I, the more that you cangive to people and a lot of
these, a lot of companies, largecompanies, like I said, have
style guides and stuff.
But then so many of the screensand the functionality with apps
(17:21):
within an ecosystem are thesame.
Like, sure, like the label'sdifferent, but it's like, is it
a pick list or is it a dropdownor what?
The individual components areall very similar.
And I think if folks were ableto offer that, like, hey, it's
not just the component library.
It's also like, we're going togive you a whole configuration
screen.
This is what we want it to looklike.
Put your own configs in.
That would help so many smallcompanies, especially like don't
(17:44):
have, don't have designersnecessarily.
And maybe don't even have astrong opinion About what they
want it to look like?
Like, just tell me.
Tell me what you want me to do.
SPEAKER_01 (17:55):
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Our head of design, AndrewGreen, over the time, built this
culture where we always strivefor high quality.
And anything that comes to ourproduct that we ship goes
through a process where we testwith user every single time.
line that we ship is wellconsidered.
(18:17):
We have some design principlesthat you would also find in the
developer guidelines, which isabout waking up every line, just
simple enough.
And I always use thatphilosophy.
I wait up every line.
I consider, do I actually needthat?
So we want our developers tothink just like that and so that
it's easier for our audience toget their app and use that
(18:40):
because Canva is used by anyonefrom my mom to my grandmom to
highly technical users.
So I guess it needs to be easierfor anyone to use your tool just
like Canva.
SPEAKER_02 (18:53):
Yes, we are Canva users here.
Great.
Our team uses it.
I sort of use it, but I haveterrible eye for design.
So I mostly just review thingsand make small changes to make
it my own.
But I know everybody, I mean,everybody uses Canva, everybody.
So, and I would imagine, yeah,it makes sense that since you
guys are a design company thatyou have strong opinions about
(19:13):
it, but I would love to see thattranslate down to like other
industries, just because again,like if someone on your team has
to design at one time, why notallow other people to take
advantage of that if it'spossible?
Cool.
I think that that is mostly whatwe have for today.
Any closing thoughts, any wordsof wisdom about developer
experience?
It's going to be an even morehot topic, I think, now that
(19:35):
there's like all this generativeAI stuff and there's going to be
more people that are sort ofhybrid developer, citizen
developer kind of thing.
So yeah, what are your closingwords of wisdom?
SPEAKER_01 (19:46):
Yeah.
So I think like when it comes toAI and the way we are heading, I
think it's going to be makingsure we, if you're working on an
AI app or you're using an AItool, you make sure you're
transparent about what the AIdoes, how the data is used and
offer a clear way to correct oroverride any AI suggestions.
(20:08):
So building that trust and trustis about openness or letting
users stay in control.
So having that in mind.
And I think we would see moreand more AI driven
collaboration.
We would see more and moreagents coming in.
It's about agents building andreading our docs, using our tool
We are going to make that moreand more automated.
(20:29):
So the industry I see is goingto change over time.
And we might see an entire appframework that AI spins up from
a simple natural languagedescription.
And human developers might bemore refining at the edges.
Yes.
Thinking about what your role isgoing to evolve into is, I
(20:51):
think, very critical.
And it's a very exciting time tobe in.
SPEAKER_02 (20:54):
Yeah.
And I love your descriptionabout saying that how Thank you
so much.
(21:26):
some of that stuff that nobodywants to work on anyway and that
isn't innovative and that isn'tfun.
Yeah.
It'll leave more space, morecognitive space for things that
are a little more exciting.
Well, excellent.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
This has been a really fun chat.
I'm going to think of you everytime I'm messing around in Canva
trying to make something looknice, not because of you,
(21:46):
because I have terrible designskills.
And yeah, I'm really excited tosee what you guys do next and
appreciate you taking the timeand hanging out with us.
And I hope our audience tunes infor more.
You can also check out our blogat pandium.com for more of our
podcasts and blog posts aboutproduct partnerships.
Thank you, Faria.
Thanks, Christina.
(22:07):
Have a good day.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
You too.
Bye.
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed our content,subscribe to our channel and
give us a thumbs up.
For more content on techpartnerships, integrations, and
APIs, check out our articles,eBooks, and other resources in
the description.
Welcome to Between Product and Partnerships, a
podcast focused on bringingtogether product, partnership,
and engineering leaders todiscuss how to build, support,
and scale SaaS ecosystems.
This podcast is presented byPandium, an integration platform
for building nativeintegrations.
SPEAKER_02 (00:16):
Hello, everyone, and thanks for tuning in to our
podcast Between Product andPartnerships.
If you're just checking us outfor the first time, we talk
about the challenges and what ittakes to build integrations and
tech partnerships and SaaSplatforms in general.
We like to talk to leaders likewe have today, working on these
problems and learn about thetrends and what they're doing to
(00:38):
navigate the space.
Today, I'm so excited to introFaria Anzum, who is a developer
experience product designleader.
lead at Canva.
Maybe Faria, if you can give alittle bit of background about
yourself and what kind of workyou do within the ecosystem
space and then we can kick itoff.
SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
Yeah, sure.
Thanks for having me, Christina.
So I'm a product designer hereat Canva and I look after like
the developer experience withinour ecosystem team.
So ecosystem is a super groupwithin Canva and we have various
teams like the app experiences,developer experiences where I'm
in, APIs team, and yeah, I'mpart of the developer experience
(01:16):
and developer experience isabout like the entire journey a
developer goes through so fromlike discovery so like
discovering our platform todocumentation building their
apps or integration and thensubmitting it and finally
launching their product with usin the marketplace then we also
have I also look after like theinternal tooling for our team so
(01:38):
like the review tooling and anyother admin tooling that helps
facilitate communication withthe developers and And yeah, so
my job is to like make sure thewhole process is efficient and
smooth, as smooth as possible.
And prior to this team, I wasalways in like the ecosystem
where I looked after like thestrategic partner apps and
(02:00):
integrations.
And we focused on very niche,specialized apps, bringing them
into our platform.
SPEAKER_02 (02:08):
Can you share more about what like the niche apps
were?
Like just what that means insort of Canva land?
UNKNOWN (02:13):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:14):
One example that comes to my mind is like the
Monday.com app, the Asana appthat you can see within Canva or
outside of Canva, for example,the Google Workspace add-on.
We work very closely withpartners when building some of
these integrations or Salesforceintegrations, for instance, that
allows you to, within Salesforceenvironment, easily have Canva
(02:34):
in there and generate a designwithout leaving the platform.
So our team looked after that.
SPEAKER_02 (02:40):
Got it.
And that's interesting.
I use the word like native Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(03:14):
use the API like a partner does,they're like, oh, I should maybe
like fix some of this stuff.
I hope that wasn't your case foryou, but it definitely, I've
seen it.
SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
Yeah, it's always the case.
SPEAKER_02 (03:25):
Yes.
All right.
So we can dive right in.
Thank you for the background.
So to kick it off, what do youlike about working on developer
experience?
SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
So when it comes to developerexperience, I really like the
opportunity that it gives me tothink strategically.
I really like system thinking.
So designing for developers isjust not about like building in
isolation.
It requires thinkingholistically across like the
entire developer journey.
So every decision that you makecan affect multiple parts of the
(03:55):
experience.
So the initial discovery and allthe way through submission and
review, and I really enjoyedthat end-to-end process.
And another thing I enjoy isdevelopers can be really vocal
as audience and they genuinelyvalue good developer experience,
like good design and usabilityAnd they're quite proactive.
(04:16):
One thing that I am lucky isthat here at Canva, our users
are developers.
They're everywhere.
Like I'm working with them everyday internally, in-house.
So I always get feedback fromthem and it keeps things moving.
So yeah, that's what I enjoy.
SPEAKER_02 (04:34):
You get to talk to a lot of external developers, like
folks that are using your work.
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
Yeah.
So yes, I get to talk.
We have like our discoursecommunity where we can like chat
with developer anytime.
We also have like have, forexample, like events where we
meet our developers.
One of the developer actuallylike came to Sydney last month
and he was like, hey, can wehave a chat?
And I was like, yeah, sure.
And I invited him to have acoffee in Canva.
(05:03):
So yeah, that was great.
And yeah, we can reach out tothem anytime.
And we have an active communityof developer members who are
really passionate about givingus feedback.
SPEAKER_02 (05:12):
Yeah, I think it's fun to sell software that
software designers or developersuse because they always have
really good feedback, in myexperience.
We here at Pandium work withproduct engineering folks,
sometimes designers, but it'smostly different kinds of
engineers.
But we know if they have a pieceof feedback that it's actually
(05:33):
really well thought out andthere's a good reason for it,
which makes our product teamlife's a lot easier because they
have a lot of good feedback forus because they use the product
every day.
SPEAKER_03 (05:46):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (05:48):
To kind of keep going down that track, what do
you think are the unique UXconsiderations to consider when
you're building anintegration-driven product or
something for developerexperience versus something for
a different kind of user?
SPEAKER_01 (06:03):
Yeah, that's a really great question.
Yes.
So when it comes to...
The challenges that I see iscombining the two distinct
experiences together.
So in Canva, we have ourestablished design system, our
users are used to like thebutton being purple or the text
(06:24):
being like Canva font.
And the external app might haveits own distinct UI, right?
So how do you combine thosetogether for our shared users so
that it feels seamless?
That's like a big challenge thatwe always need to consider.
And as a designer, I have tofigure out how to blend this
black pattern so that it feelsunified and intuitive and never
(06:47):
confusing or disjoint.
I think another design challengewould be particularly in
developer experience is thecontext switching.
So Developers typically, theyjuggle between multiple tools at
the same time, like IDE,terminal, version control,
browser, debugging console, etcetera.
So that cognitive load is realand there's like that constant
(07:09):
context switching.
So we strive to reduce frictionwherever possible.
So for example, one simple thingcould be like having a
consistent theming across likeall like our documentation to
like the tooling that wecontrol, maybe like theme.
which I assume many developerswould use.
(07:30):
And we have also seen that inour developer community.
Having that concept, that atleast like would go a long way
to reduce strain, for example.
So it's all about creatingsmooth experience as developers
move between Canva environmentand their own development tool.
So yeah, those are the two thatcomes to my mind.
SPEAKER_02 (07:52):
Got it.
And talk to pivot a little bitinto something that I'm really
interested in.
And then we'll talk about AI alittle bit for the second part
of this.
I know you have from yourprevious work, your work on your
previous team at Canva workingwith the integration's
specifically.
Do you have any best practicesin building scalable partner
integrations?
SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
Yes.
So when it comes to scalable,it's about how might we empower
our partners to build at scale.
And we do that by providingbuilding blocks.
So for instance, over the years,we now have three app templates
that allows you to plug and playyour platform.
Then we have the app patterns sothat You don't need to like
(08:37):
worry about how if you need to,if your app is going to meet
like our design guidelines, ifit's going to meet like the
review criteria, you can justlike use them as building
blocks.
And we also have like our FigmaUI kit that allows you to like
design your app before you bringinto production.
So these are some honorablemention that comes to my mind
(08:59):
that we have done over theyears.
And there are so many more thatwe are working on.
So provide I think greatbuilding blocks is one way to
look into it.
The Figma file sounds cool.
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (09:13):
That just sounds interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, tell me a little bit moreabout that, like how you guys
work with a tool like Figma tohelp your partners build apps
that you're happy with.
UNKNOWN (09:25):
That's fine.
SPEAKER_01 (09:27):
So yeah, we see like what are like the sum of the
common submission coming in fromthe developers.
So if we see like we are gettingone thing, for example, like we
have a consistent error messagesand a style to display error
message across all the apps orthe empty state, they should
look and feel the same acrossany app you're in.
(09:49):
So if you bring like an emptystate, that's from an external
app in Canva and they all lookdifferent, it might confuse the
user.
So we provide those basicscreens to our developers within
Figma so that they know, so thatthey don't need to like worry
about bringing them orrebuilding them.
They can just consider on likethe key screens.
(10:10):
So that's one thing.
And we work in collaborationwith our partner.
That's like very critical.
So like they provide feedback.
We run workshops, design reviewsback in my time in the partner
apps and integrations team.
So that feedback leads to highquality app that's going to
scale.
(10:30):
So Tight collaboration meansfewer surprises and better
outcome.
Yeah, TLDR would be providingstrong building blocks,
guidelines and partnershiporiented approach to make sure
like we have consistent quality,even as our ecosystem scales
significantly.
SPEAKER_02 (10:47):
I love the idea of providing like actual designs
versus I know a lot of companieswill do like a style guide or a
component library, which isgood.
But having like the real likethis is what I want an empty
state to look like would besuper helpful for.
Yeah, I'm sure they deeplyappreciate it, especially
smaller ones where like theymaybe don't want to or don't
(11:08):
have in-house designers.
They can just do whatever youguys say and make it make your
lives a lot easier.
Cool.
So let's talk about what is onthe tip of everybody's tongue,
AI.
And it sounds like you've gotsome thoughts on that, too.
So.
I guess more generally, like howis AI influencing your partners
and the developer workflows thatthey use for building
(11:30):
integrations for you guys?
SPEAKER_01 (11:31):
AI is definitely game changing.
And I think it's a veryincredible time to be in the
industry.
So we're seeing like tools likeChatGPT, Cursor, Cloud.
So that allows you to likegenerate complete code snippet
from scratch, like the languageand even like an entire feature.
What that tells us is there islike a lower barrier to entry,
(11:53):
which can turn like anyone intodeveloper overnight.
So like my mom can be adeveloper if she doesn't need to
know how to code.
So in a way, it's wheredemocratizing technology the
software development, similar tolike how Canva democratized
design.
So like what that tells us islike, we need to think carefully
about like how our platformsupports these new tools for
(12:16):
developers.
For example, recently welaunched the Canva Dev MCP that
allows you to be in cursor oryour favorite AI tool and just
build apps with us easily.
The cursor agent can read ourdocumentation and helps you get
like, it gets like the templatefrom the library as a starter
(12:36):
kit.
And then you can just previewyour app all within cursor
without moving and all fromnatural language.
And that's crazy how we'reassessing how AI can assist in
every step of like the developerjourney.
So whether by like helpinggenerate the starter code or
configuring setting or catchingany potential errors early on,
or there can be like many more.
(12:58):
that hopefully you'll see in theupcoming days.
So it's about making thatprocess easier and faster and
more accessible for our devs.
So yeah, I think we're in a veryfascinating time in the history.
A century ago, we had humansthat were literally computers
SPEAKER_03 (13:15):
And
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
we didn't have the concept of software developers
because, yeah, and now we're ata place where anyone can
automate tasks, buildintegrations.
SPEAKER_02 (13:30):
So yeah, I think it's like the next industrial
revolution.
So I can imagine that, you know,using AI, whether it's MCP or
just using, you know, a cursorkind of vanilla, you guys would
(13:53):
be a good company to work with,a good system to work with
because you have all of theseinputs already, right?
You know, AI can, the LLM stuffcan be a little bit more dodgy
when there's not a lot to feedit, you know, like it's going to
go look for the templates, lookfor the documentation that's
been on the internet for awhile.
And if you guys already havethat and you've built, you know,
(14:14):
the MCP functionalities, Likethat definitely, I could see
that giving folks a real leg up.
Do you, I don't know if there'sany way for you guys to know,
like how much of an app is beingbuilt with that versus, you
know, like if there's like apercent, like if someone submits
a new app to you, I don't, isthere a way for you to tell?
There may not be a way for youto tell if it's like 50% of it
(14:36):
was built by a human and 50% ofit was built by a cursor or
something like that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:40):
Oh, that would be a great idea.
We don't have that at themoment.
SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
Yeah.
I mean, I think that that'sactually probably the point,
right?
Is that you can't tell thedifference necessarily, like as
long as it works.
Exactly.
That's kind of, yeah, that'swhat I find to be really
interesting about, you know,using AI and generative code
kind of functionality is thatthere is a, there is like a
rubber meets the road momentwhere it's either going to work
(15:04):
or it's not going to work versussome things that are like more
subjective that, you know, ifyou're asking chat GPT for its
opinion about something, or ifit's a kind of inserting its
opinion about
SPEAKER_03 (15:16):
something,
SPEAKER_02 (15:17):
you know, with coding, it's like, you either
are able to run it and it doesthe thing that you want it to do
or not.
And for you guys, I'm sure youhave some sort of app approval
process and stuff that folkshave to go through.
So whatever can drive down theamount of effort while still
maintaining the functionality,it doesn't matter where that
code came from as long as thething works.
(15:40):
When did you guys launch thecursor support?
I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_01 (15:45):
Yes, yes, yes.
It was just last month.
So very recently.
Yeah, very recently.
Cool.
Have
SPEAKER_02 (15:51):
you guys seen any changes in the way apps are
submitted since then?
It hasn't been very long, soprobably
SPEAKER_01 (15:58):
not.
It hasn't been very long, butI'm very curious to see how
people use it.
We designers, we're just usingit.
I tried out when our engineerjust launched.
I was in my computer trying outCursor.
I don't know how to code, and Icould just generate the app from
Cursor.
So that was cool.
SPEAKER_02 (16:17):
That's so cool.
Yeah.
I mean, I, transparently, I alsoam not a programmer.
I, like you, probably knowenough to be dangerous, but I
don't write code myself.
But I think every company hastheir finger on the pulse there
and is also looking for ways tonot replace humans, but to make
people faster and get rid ofthat boilerplate stuff.
And the way that we think aboutit internally, the way that I
(16:40):
think about it, is it'sreplacing Stack Overflow.
Instead of going through abillion posts and trying to find
an answer, sometimes it will beable to provide you with that
answer immediately.
And again, as long as you'redoing proper QA and you're
testing it and validating thatit works, I think everyone wants
to do less boilerplate stuff.
(17:00):
Exactly.
And that goes back to the designtoo.
I didn't realize that you guysactually provided that level of
design guidance.
Like that's really, I'm going tohave to go back and look at your
docs now and see if I could findsome of that.
It's cool.
It's cool.
Like I, the more that you cangive to people and a lot of
these, a lot of companies, largecompanies, like I said, have
style guides and stuff.
But then so many of the screensand the functionality with apps
(17:21):
within an ecosystem are thesame.
Like, sure, like the label'sdifferent, but it's like, is it
a pick list or is it a dropdownor what?
The individual components areall very similar.
And I think if folks were ableto offer that, like, hey, it's
not just the component library.
It's also like, we're going togive you a whole configuration
screen.
This is what we want it to looklike.
Put your own configs in.
That would help so many smallcompanies, especially like don't
(17:44):
have, don't have designersnecessarily.
And maybe don't even have astrong opinion About what they
want it to look like?
Like, just tell me.
Tell me what you want me to do.
SPEAKER_01 (17:55):
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Our head of design, AndrewGreen, over the time, built this
culture where we always strivefor high quality.
And anything that comes to ourproduct that we ship goes
through a process where we testwith user every single time.
line that we ship is wellconsidered.
(18:17):
We have some design principlesthat you would also find in the
developer guidelines, which isabout waking up every line, just
simple enough.
And I always use thatphilosophy.
I wait up every line.
I consider, do I actually needthat?
So we want our developers tothink just like that and so that
it's easier for our audience toget their app and use that
(18:40):
because Canva is used by anyonefrom my mom to my grandmom to
highly technical users.
So I guess it needs to be easierfor anyone to use your tool just
like Canva.
SPEAKER_02 (18:53):
Yes, we are Canva users here.
Great.
Our team uses it.
I sort of use it, but I haveterrible eye for design.
So I mostly just review thingsand make small changes to make
it my own.
But I know everybody, I mean,everybody uses Canva, everybody.
So, and I would imagine, yeah,it makes sense that since you
guys are a design company thatyou have strong opinions about
(19:13):
it, but I would love to see thattranslate down to like other
industries, just because again,like if someone on your team has
to design at one time, why notallow other people to take
advantage of that if it'spossible?
Cool.
I think that that is mostly whatwe have for today.
Any closing thoughts, any wordsof wisdom about developer
experience?
It's going to be an even morehot topic, I think, now that
(19:35):
there's like all this generativeAI stuff and there's going to be
more people that are sort ofhybrid developer, citizen
developer kind of thing.
So yeah, what are your closingwords of wisdom?
SPEAKER_01 (19:46):
Yeah.
So I think like when it comes toAI and the way we are heading, I
think it's going to be makingsure we, if you're working on an
AI app or you're using an AItool, you make sure you're
transparent about what the AIdoes, how the data is used and
offer a clear way to correct oroverride any AI suggestions.
(20:08):
So building that trust and trustis about openness or letting
users stay in control.
So having that in mind.
And I think we would see moreand more AI driven
collaboration.
We would see more and moreagents coming in.
It's about agents building andreading our docs, using our tool
We are going to make that moreand more automated.
(20:29):
So the industry I see is goingto change over time.
And we might see an entire appframework that AI spins up from
a simple natural languagedescription.
And human developers might bemore refining at the edges.
Yes.
Thinking about what your role isgoing to evolve into is, I
(20:51):
think, very critical.
And it's a very exciting time tobe in.
SPEAKER_02 (20:54):
Yeah.
And I love your descriptionabout saying that how Thank you
so much.
(21:26):
some of that stuff that nobodywants to work on anyway and that
isn't innovative and that isn'tfun.
Yeah.
It'll leave more space, morecognitive space for things that
are a little more exciting.
Well, excellent.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
This has been a really fun chat.
I'm going to think of you everytime I'm messing around in Canva
trying to make something looknice, not because of you,
(21:46):
because I have terrible designskills.
And yeah, I'm really excited tosee what you guys do next and
appreciate you taking the timeand hanging out with us.
And I hope our audience tunes infor more.
You can also check out our blogat pandium.com for more of our
podcasts and blog posts aboutproduct partnerships.
Thank you, Faria.
Thanks, Christina.
(22:07):
Have a good day.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
You too.
Bye.
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed our content,subscribe to our channel and
give us a thumbs up.
For more content on techpartnerships, integrations, and
APIs, check out our articles,eBooks, and other resources in
the description.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com