Greenhouse design system

The challenge:

Zendesk’s design system, Greenhouse was one of my longest-running projects at the company and the one I was most passionate about. When I started Greenhouse in 2021, it was a relatively new system, being run independently by one designer. My initial goal was to build out clear processes and documentation on how partners such as product design, web and other creatives could apply the system. Through a series of contribution matrixes, sprint models, Asana forms and Confluence documentation, I worked with the designer to create a clear system. However, there was a large gap in education that needed to be remided.

There’s always a question in a project of time vs quality. A design system is the foundation for everything you build next. I always advocate for a quality base so that future projects can be faster and better align to the core style.

Process

Greenhouse operated on two-week sprints. At the end of each sprint the Greenhouse engineer, the systems team and I would meet to review the work completed that sprint and adjust the backlog. In each meeting we planned three sprints ahead so that there was a visible plan of work to reference for each teams roadmaps.

The sprint backlog existed in Asana and auto-populated to Jira epics (for wider engineering visibility). Greenhouse operated using story points and a matrix was developed so that points were properly allocated based on time, complexity and impact.

At the end of each collection of sprints, release notes were published to creative, web and product design. We opted for less frequent releases so users would not feel overwhelmed by messages every two weeks.

Education:

• Greenhouse office hours: All designers across the company had access to Greenhouse office hours once a week. The session was an open forum where they could meet with the lead systems designer and ask questions, receive tutorials or brainstorm ideas.
• Leadership education: The creative and overall marketing leadership were in support of having a standardized design system but they required more ongoing information to understand the resources and time needed to support this continuous development. I set up quarterly meetings to showcase the progress being made, and build a case to dedicate additional project time to develop the system. Over time I was able to build a strategic case to add Greenhouse as part of the Marketing roadmap and have representation in the OKRs.
• Adoption: The creative team was not constructed of systems experts but many would need to use and contribute to Greenhouse to have adoption across verticles. I developed a proposal, and gained leadership approval to, have a minimum of one person on each creative functional team to serve as a Greenhouse liason. They would be responsible for keeping up to date with new component releases, continuing their design system education and escalate any projects on their team for consultation.

Greenhouse 2.0

At the start of 2023, Zendesk Creative started a brand refresh, leading to the need for a new design system. My main focus as the producer and advocate of the system was to make sure that Greenhouse had the resources to be successful in this next iteration.

As I developed program plans for the brand refresh, I included significant resourcing from creative systems, engineering, G&M, UX research and accessibility in order to build a strong foundation for Greenhouse 2.0. I facilitated months of cross-functional workshops and sessions with SMEs to have a system that met the needs of all partners. Accessibility, animations and globalization were areas that weren’t also as strong in the first iteration of the system and this refresh presented the opportunity to make the sites user experience significantly better for all groups.