Drupal CMS began from an ambition to place the power of Drupal in the hands of non-technical audiences, in other words to engineer features powerful enough for developers yet accessible enough for marketers. Drupal CMS 2.0 tackled this head-on, with innovative technical solutions to real user problems without compromise.
This session takes you behind the scenes of Drupal CMS's most ambitious features giving insight into the research that’s driven and guided technical development so far, and highlighting the milestones still to be achieved on the roadmap to making Drupal CMS the number one choice for marketers and non-technical site builders. I’ll break down techniques used to learn what marketers want (spoiler – it’s not always what they say they want), explain how we gathered evidence to guide the direction of new features and talk through ways to use UX insight as a catalyst for working innovatively.
Bridging the gap between technical implementation and user experience, this session will show how complex technical challenges are solved with real users in mind. You'll see how Drupal CMS is pushing boundaries in areas like AI integration, visual content creation, and workflow automation, while learning about the architectural decisions and technical constraints that shape these innovations.
Whether you're interested in learning about Drupal CMS, supporting it, contributing to it, solving similar problems in your own projects, or understanding how user research can inform technical decisions, you'll leave with practical insights as well as a deeper understanding of the process behind accessible innovation.
Open to all, attendees will get the most out of this session by being familiar with and interested in Drupal CMS and UX.
Beginning with a grounding in Drupal CMS, revisiting the design philosophy, ethos and impetus underpinning it, this session will explore the paths taken to achieve its many varied capabilities, and emphasise the ongoing role of UX research in shaping Drupal’s newest product.
Drawing from my dual role as UX Research Lead for Drupal CMS and UX Manager for Drupal Core, I’ll break down the evolving relationship between Drupal Core and Drupal CMS, and set this in context with the Drupal CMS roadmap, stretch goals and anticipated milestones.
Delving deeper, you’ll get first-hand insights of the varied research carried out throughout the Drupal CMS journey, from MVP to 1.0 to 2.0, including what we learned from telemetry data, surveys, community interviews, and user interface testing. I’ll explain our choices of research techniques and how we interpreted the findings into actions and improvements.
More specifically, I’ll cover how we shaped the Drupal CMS installation process to provide an enticing first impression, introducing audiences to some of the coolest parts of Drupal including site templates, recipes and AI features. You’ll learn how we prioritised user-driven optimisation of every-day tasks like content creation and extension, how we gathered and channelled valuable feedback to make Drupal Canvas even better, and understand the challenges associated with presenting multiple content creation paradigms. I’ll also cover how we worked with parallel cutting-edge Drupal initiatives like AI and ECA to bring the best of Drupal to Drupal CMS, in ways to meet and exceed the marketer audience needs.
Reflecting on the Drupal CMS journey so far, I’ll talk through the bigger, longer-term pieces of work as well as the quicker wins, highlighting where we need community help on the design, research and technical sides. Interested in helping to shape Drupal’s future? This is the session for you!
Join this session and you will
- Understand how UX research is informing technical decisions in Drupal CMS
- Gain insight into the latest Drupal CMS innovations – what’s new and what’s next
- Learn how we’re making powerful tools like AI and ECA available to non-technical audiences in a responsible way
- Discover ways to reduce complexity in powerful systems without comprise
- Identify areas for contribution and collaborations to help shape Drupal CMS
