What are the best practices to design a resource representation?

Following are important points to be considered while designing a representation format of a resource in a RESTful web services −

• Understandability − Both Server and Client should be able to understand and utilize the representation format of the resource.
• Completeness − Format should be able to represent a resource completely. For example, a resource can contain another resource. Format should be able to represent simple as well as complex structures of resources.
• Linkablity − A resource can have a linkage to another resource, a format should be able to handles such situations.