The Information Gathering Strategies of API Learners

API users experience significant difficulties when learning how to use APIs, but little is known about the strategies used to overcome these difficulties, the motivation for each strategy, or the trade-offs between the strategies. To better understand the information seeking strategies of API users, we conducted a study in which 20 participants were asked to complete programming tasks using unfamiliar APIs, with the documentation of the APIs and the Web as learning resources. We observed that participants used one of three different strategies when seeking for information on how to use APIs: some were more inclined to using the Web, others preferred the documentation of the APIs, and others combined both the Web and the documentation. We present the characteristics, motivation, and trade-offs between these strategies, and suggests new ideas for documentation and tools to facilitate the information-seeking process of API learners.