2. Overview
• Problem outline and a bit of history
• Basic principles of improving backend UX
• Real-life examples, tips and modules
• Spark project and Drupal 8 UI
improvements
• Conclusion and Q&A
6. D7UX initiative
D7UX principles:
• Make the most frequent tasks easy and
less frequent tasks achievable.
• Design for the 80%
• Privilege the Content Creator
• Make the default settings smart
Site: www.d7ux.org
7. D7UX results
• Updated and
simplified structure
• “Seven” theme with
optional overlay
• Admin toolbar with
shortcuts
• Dashboard
• Contextual links
8. D7UX was a huge
improvement
To push it further, let’s identify the
issue first
9. Problem outline
• Drupal admin interface, concepts and
entities can be confusing even for
beginner developers
• Clients who are using the CMS usually
don't think in the same logical patterns as
developers
• Developers rarely pay attention to this
issue and it ends up being ignored
10. How to make client’s daily
interactions with your product
easier?
11. Basic principles
• Simplify by reducing all that is not
necessary
• Don't make user guess
• Ensure consistent logical and interface
patterns
• Minimize cost of user error
13. Navigation
• By default user is redirected to /user page
which is usually useless for editors
• Redirect user to the page where he/she can
perform their common actions
• https://drupal.org/project/login_redirect
• https://drupal.org/project/rules
• Logging in is not the only use case
• Remove unused menu items with permissons
• https://drupal.org/project/shortcutperrole
14. Dashboard & content list
Dashboard
• Default D7 dashboard
• https://drupal.org/project/workbench
Content list
• https://drupal.org/project/admin_views
• https://drupal.org/project/improved_admin
• https://drupal.org/project/views_bulk_operations
16. Content: easy improvements
• Give meaningful names and descriptions to content
types, their fields and other entities
• Clone existing nodes with
https://drupal.org/project/node_clone
• Create another node of the same content type in a row
with https://drupal.org/project/addanother
• Schedule automatic publishing and unpublishing of
nodes https://drupal.org/project/scheduler
• Add https://drupal.org/project/linkit to provide easy
interface for internal and external linking to nodes, users,
managed files, etc…
17. Content: reduce with permissions
Leave only necessary
node options by:
• Limiting permissions
• https://drupal.org/project/
override_node_option
18. Content: WYSIWYG
• Don’t make user think about input format, set it by
role with: https://drupal.org/project/better_formats
• Integrate it with file system
• Remove unused buttons in editor
19. Content: media files
Allow user to manage and reuse uploaded files:
• https://drupal.org/project/media_browser_plus
• https://drupal.org/project/imce
• https://drupal.org/project/filedepot
• http://drupal.org/project/plupload for multiple file
uploads
These modules can be overwhelming for editors,
so try to disable unused features and customize
per needs.
20. Content: dealing with complex forms
https://drupal.org/project/field_group https://drupal.org/project/conditional_fields
22. Views & panels
• Views built-in feature that is often overlooked: add
contextual links in all listings on the site to allow
quick access to node editing or deletion.
• Allow editors to edit headers and footers of Views
without giving access to everything else with
https://drupal.org/project/views_ui_basic
• Easily rearrange view items with
https://drupal.org/project/draggableviews
• If you use panels, you can override panel content
per node with https://drupal.org/project/panelizer
23. Minimizing cost of error
• Enable revisions by default and use
http://drupal.org/project/diff to let editors compare
them and easily roll back
• Make sure you have (at least) daily backups set up.
Not really an UI advice, but it’s always relevant
• Use https://drupal.org/project/field_validation to
create specific validation rules for fields
• Install https://drupal.org/project/clientside_validation
to send feedback to user immediately without having
to submit the form.
25. Spark
• In-place editing
• D&D layout tools
• Enhanced content
creation
• Dashboard
improvements
• Mobile (responsive)
administration
• CK Editor in core
• And much more
https://drupal.org/project/spark
28. Conclusion
• Drupal admin interface often can be complex for
end users
• Constant improvement is evident (though it could
be faster)
• Usability of Drupal and your project in particular
depends on you: don’t overlook the issue, test
backend usability, improve it, share it by
contributing
• It’s a good investment that will enrich your projects
and make your clients a bit happier
