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    Major Version 9 Migration

    Role
    Senior Product Manager
    2024
    for Zendesk

    Garden v9 is the latest major version of Zendesk's Design System.

    The launch contains accessibility improvements, a new approach to theming to unlock Dark Mode and various designer/developer improvements, like the adoption of Semantic Variables, React 18 and API improvements. 850+ designers, developers and product managers will adopt Garden v9.

    22+ teams globally
    collaborated with Garden
    Solved 46%
    Support Blocker a11y bugs
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    Links

    https://garden.zendesk.com/https://react.dev/blog/2022/03/29/react-v18https://www.figma.com/blog/the-future-of-design-systems-is-semantic/

    Accessibility enables all of Zendesk's agents and end-users with audiovisual and/or motor impairments to provide and receive world-class CX. With v9, we’ve tackled color contrast issues and improved navigation, addressing key challenges that hinder usability. In fact, migrating to v9 resolves 46% of all accessibility bugs (blocker) in the core product, Support!

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    Dark Mode is a highly requested feature from our agents–over 1,200 Z2 requests. With an updated color palette, we are excited to bring native Dark Mode to customers in early 2025. This differentiates Zendesk from competitors like Salesforce and Freshdesk, allowing Zendesk to offer a fresher, modern, more usable interface that customers will love.

    v9 provided a foundation to more easily update Zendesk UI to align with Zendesk’s new brand and our newly acquired capabilities.

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    Garden v9 incorporates Figma’s latest feature–Semantic variables. This improvement enables Zendesk engineering and design teams to communicate better, iterate faster, and ship products at a higher velocity.

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    v9 provided a way to reduce technical debt with a simplified API, cutting down thousands of lines of code. This reduction enhances overall application performance and code maintainability.

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