Summary
This is a basic intro to Drupal UX, meant for front-end developers who are new to Drupal or have concerns about usability on their existing Drupal websites.
Intro
I have a white whale. It is to make Drupal usable. Because — as of the current version, Drupal 6 — Drupal just doesn’t cut it without some extra attention to detail, and of course some extra modules.
Even though this is a pretty basic intro to Drupal UX, I’m assuming the following:
- Your site is installed and configured properly
- You have admin access to your drupal site and FTP access to your server
- You know basic php, HTML and some CSS
1. First things first – If you can’t afford a good, experienced designer pick a really simple theme as your default and modify it ever so slightly.
Don’t use Garland. No disrespect, but it’s horrible.
Eye candy and the desire to increase “perceived” value shouldn’t interfere with usability. By “perceived” value I mean things that a client will pay for but don’t actually increase the actual utility of a site. Those are sales tactics and if you’re already building a site for someone I think we can assume they’ve bought into your process.
If the front-end requirements are such that you can’t accommodate a smooth transition between viewing and editing content, you should consider using a stock back-end. People need room to write content Creating a high quality experience for users is not about wow factor, it is about eliminating frustration as best you can.
2. Use form filter and/or vertical tabs to clean up your forms.
Drupal forms are massive, intimidating and overall kinda poorly worded. They confuse and fustrate causal users to no end — and so we must bend them to our will.
That’s where form filter comes in handy. By default when you grant node admin privileges the node form just explodes, but most users don’t need or want to change publication dates or select what kinds of input the want to put into text areas.
2a. Then hack your forms (optional).
You can also hack your own messages/instructions directly into forms. Try Addison Berry’s tutorial for some nice tricks.
http://www.lullabot.com/articles/modifying-forms-drupal-5-and-6
3. Whenever possible use tags/taxonomies/categories to organize content
Taxonomy, vocabularies… Tags… Drupal calls them a million different things in a whole bunch of places. They’re just a way to organize things but they’re oh so important.
Tags also help users think about how the site is organized.
4. Do search well or suck it up and use google custom search
There are some very robust search utilities available for Drupal, but no one is ever satisfied with them. They all suck in different ways.
Drupal built in search is limited, although there are some good modules that can improve it’s usability. Apache Solr and Open Calais are a ton of work and quite complicated to implement but if your site has deep content this might be the way to go.
Goggle indexes your site for you any way. And if Googlebot likes you everyone else does as well. (There is no shame in googling yourself a little.)
5. Use the Administration menu module
The admin menu is not just for magic people that have the privilege to install modules. It provides deep access to drupal and that’s important when your links are three levels deep.
