Our product strategy for 2023 and what we’ve released so far

zeroheight’s been around a long time. As a result, we’ve had front-row seats to the evolution of design systems. And our goal has always been to evolve as rapidly as the users we serve.

So at the start of this year, we talked to our customers: from individual designers beginning their journey to large enterprise customers with incredibly mature design systems. We used our findings to set clear priorities for the year:

• Increasing the amount of developer content in styleguides
• Adding more tools to help increase design system adoption
• Making it easier for editors to improve the quality of documentation

We’ve released a lot in just one quarter, and we couldn’t be more excited about how you will use the new features to create and improve your design systems.

Getting more developer content into zeroheight

When we first launched, most of our users were product designers. That’s changed dramatically. Our latest How we Document report shows teams now include more developers, amongst other roles.

zeroheight has always included features meant for documenting code, including a Storybook integration, live React components, and code snippets. But we know that providing even more and easier ways for developers to add content to design systems is huge.

More developer content means that products get to market faster as teams leverage reusable code. It means the chasm between what designers create and what front-end developers add to the product disappears.

Like our other priorities, this will be year-long. But so far, we’ve made significant improvements that should help.

Native Embedding for Storybook

Our Storybook integration is one of our most used. It allows developers to contribute rich content to design systems without changing their workflows.

Despite the Storybook integration’s popularity, we knew there was an opportunity to make it easier to use for both styleguide editors and viewers. So, we introduced native embedding.

Native embedding represents massive time savings for teams using versioning in Storybook. Now, they can update a single URL upon releasing a new version vs. hundreds.

For viewers, controls are now displayed on the page, making Storybook content perform just like other zeroheight content.

Design Tokens Manager

Our design tokens manager was another big piece of work for the team. And it’s one we’re incredibly excited about.

The new design tokens manager helps teams fully manage their workflows in one place.

• Import tokens as JSON files or directly through GitHub.
• View tokens in an easy-to-read table to ensure every member of the product team can interact with them
• Edit tokens without using any code
• Export tokens in JSON format or initiate a pull request on GitHub

With a single source of truth for design tokens, we hope zeroheight users will connect more tools, collaborate more effectively, and utilize more tokens.

Ultimately, more developer content in the form of design tokens helps teams ship much faster (something we can get behind).

Increasing design system adoption

It’s almost impossible to understate the importance of design system adoption. A design system no one uses is like a tree falling independently in the woods – did it make a sound?

Our efforts around design system adoption this quarter have fallen into two categories: helping users get the word out and helping users understand the impact they’ve made so far.

Taken together, we aim to help users employ more methods to increase awareness around their design systems and understand how each technique performs.

Share what’s new

Maintaining a changelog can be a chore. But making viewers aware of changes helps them navigate your styleguides much more effectively.

In March, we launched an update that should help you start documenting everything that’s changed.

You can quickly add a content block that generates a list of every page that’s been added, updated, or deleted in the last 30 days. From there, your team can add additional context on what exactly’s changed.

This is certainly just the start to maintaining a high-quality changelog. But we’re excited that zeroheight users no longer have to recall all the work they’ve done in the previous month.

Shout about releases on Slack

For many teams, a Release is a big deal. It’s the culmination of lots of work on the design system. So, we wanted to help folks get the word out about them.

We built our Slack integration to help you get your colleagues into the design system after a big release. When you use it, a notification is sent to a public Slack channel letting your team know there’s a new release with a link to check it out.

Export analytics data

With two new ways to get folks into your design systems, you may be wondering if there’s a spike in visitors.

That’s where zeroheight Analytics comes in. Our in-product Analytics allows you to analyze page views and encourage viewers to rate page helpfulness.

And this quarter, we’ve allowed you to export that data to conduct even further analysis. We hope you can use the data to develop a top-notch strategy for sustained design system usage.

Making it easier for editors to improve the quality of documentation

This one’s a no-brainer – design systems are better when they’re high quality. This quarter, we focused on helping styleguide editors track their work. Ideally, if we can make it easier to understand what needs updating, you can spend more time making the changes that improve your styleguides for users.

Customize the label of status tags

Making status tags more flexible was one of the first things we did this quarter. When we launched status tags, they quickly became one of the most used features in zeroheight. And it makes sense. Status tags help editors and viewers understand what’s happening with a page – Is it a new component? One in beta? Has it been deprecated?

The problem was that labels needed to be more flexible. We had seven preset values that worked for many teams but fell short for others with unique workflows.

That’s changed now. Now, you can create labels that match how your team works. So, add a tag like “In Review” or get even more granular and add something like “Waiting on Bobby’s feedback.” The point is that you’re now in control of how your labels work.

Organize status tags in a table

With more flexible status tag labels, we wanted to add more to help teams organize work even further. So, we added a content block that automatically generates a status tag table that includes when a page was last edited, the status tag, and notes.

We imagine that teams will use the table to see when pages have sat dormant and decide on the next steps in the notes. Or, teams might look at all of the “New” pages and add notes for styleguide viewers about what’s changed.

Since zeroheight allows you to hide a page, you can decide if you’d like status tables to be visible to editors and viewers or just referencable by editors.

Looking into the rest of 2023

Our priorities are set, which is an exciting thing! And we plan to deliver even more to help folks add more developer content, increase awareness around their design systems, and improve styleguide quality.

If you’d like to chat about everything we’re building (or offer some feedback), join us at zheroes. We also announce new stuff over there first.