Building User-Centred Websites with Drupal

Building user-centred websites with Drupal Amanda Etches-Johnson Greg Sennema Catherine Baird OLA Super Conference, January 29, 2009

Quick show of hands... how many of you have heard of Drupal? how many of you are planning to use Drupal? how many of you are already using Drupal?

Here’s what we’re going to do The what, how, why of Drupal The Laurier Experience The McMaster Experience Wrap-up: lessons learned, what not to do, etc.

The what, how, why of Drupal

http://drupalib.org

drupalib.interoperating.info

www.lib.uwo.ca

www.londonpubliclibrary.ca

library.wlu.ca

library.mcmaster.ca

Drupal: out of the box blogs + comments regular web pages polls forum user proﬁles taxonomies ...and a few other things

So, what does “modular” mean? turn on the features you want ignore the ones you don’t want add new “modules” as you build

But, what does it really mean? out of the box = a reasonably functional site modules enabled = a super-duper, highly customized, wicked functional site!

Modular is good! remember that HUGE development community? over 5,800 modules in the directory if you can dream it, there is a module that can do it

Working with Drupal HTML CSS PHP Server admin

The Laurier Experience

library.wlu.ca easier web site maintenance web-based maintenance incorporate different functionality easily re-purpose content just completed site redesign sick of Dreamweaver!

The timeline June – Aug. 2007: evaluated Drupal Sept. 2007 – Feb. 2008: surprise me! V5 or v6? Mar. – Apr. 2008: tried to break Drupal May - July 2008: moved content August 2008: ﬁnal testing, went live

Altering our workﬂows Reformulated web advisory committee Gave access to more staff Held series of training sessions Created help pages

The players web advisory committee systems programmer (90%) me (40%)

The cool stuff...

Library Tamarak Juniper Hemlock

Our plans... Gallery Events/Calendar Taxonomy CCK/Views/Panels, i.e…. …the cool stuff Amanda will show you from the McMaster site…

The McMaster Experience

Why Drupal? make site admin easier past experience with Drupal

The players advisory committee sysadmin co-op student me

Decision time! which version of Drupal? decided on 5 module development

Decision time! to CCK or not to CCK? CCK is not essential but it’s a really good idea think about site updating & permissions 20+ content types

The cool stuff...

The McMaster [Intranet] Experience

Staff intranet redesign Redesigned public website Busy organization Many projects/initiatives Increased use of blogs/wikis, particularly for projects Improve internal communication Clarity and consistency

Where I’m coming from 1992 1996 1998 2006 2008 2009

Where we started

Requirements Solutions to all of the problems (navigation, search, consistency, etc.) Self-serve Customizable permissions Dynamic Interactive

Process Inventory of content Examined usage statistics Staff survey Wireframes

Wrapping my head around Drupal

Content types for staff intranet Department Committee Project Service Page (default) Policy & Procedure Training & Development page

Sample committee page

Categories/taxonomies

The redesign

Time & resources 1 librarian 1 co-op student Support from User Experience Librarian Started Fall 2008 Plan to launch Spring 2009

Wrap up: Must-Have Modules, Lessons Learned, What NOT to do

Must-have modules CCK Views Webform PathAuto IMCE Faceted Search Google Analytics FCKEditor/TinyMCE Backup and Migrate Nice Menus Akismet/CAPTCHA

Lessons learned it can be done! envision the site ﬁrst think about who will maintain what think of content types in terms of consistency of information and permissions having a blogging background helps use PathAuto for human-readable URLs when templating, start with a core theme (e.g. Zen) multiple backups and test servers carefully consider version

What NOT to do mess with core code use alpha release versions of modules install modules 1st time on live server get deterred: lots of help online and in library community

Questions?

Thanks! These slides are online at: http://blogwithoutalibrary.net/talk/ola2009/drupal.pdf amanda@etches-johnson.com gsennema@wlu.ca bairdca@mcmaster.ca

Building User-Centred Websites with Drupal

by amanda etches-johnson on Mar 06, 2009

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Building User-Centred Websites with Drupal — Presentation Transcript

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