Building (and rebuilding) custom left nav for tech docs in ZenDesk
Relaunching the Split.io doc hub with better nav, see how we did it.
0:00 countdown to the start
0:23 Chris DeMars is back on Twitch now that he's running DevRel at Split.
14:03 Start of live new navigation cutover session for help.split.io with Jake Bellacera (@jakebellacera) and Dave Karow (@davekarow)
17:30 A bit of background: history of help.split.io (demo of v1 of the left navigation)
18:36 Goal for V2: automating the left nav to deliver what users would expect
19:35 Jake walks through what's changing in ZenDesk and in the Split.io app's Help screen.
22:00 Jake shows how the feature flag in Split.io is controlling the release of the in-app help screen changes, including dogfooding the V2 UI via "individual targets" (an allowlist)
24:30 The ZenDesk theme in our GitHub repo and using ZenDesk to pull the changes.
26:00 Taking in-app help changes live via Split.io and an approval flow (Dave approves :-))
28:00 Dave points out that the split.io change didn't require a code push... just a toggle. Less stress!
29:29 Jake explains why as a dev, he loves decoupling one team from another via flags
32:36 Jake steps back to explain how he coded the dynamic left nav for our ZenDesk theme.
38:08 Dave gives props to Diana Lynch, who runs docs for Split.io and who collaborated with Jake and Dave to get this new experience built.
40:27 How we got here
40:50 What a relief it was to not have to fight the systems and focus on the code, thanks to feature flags