1. Building user-centred
websites with Drupal
Amanda Etches-Johnson
Greg Sennema
Catherine Baird
OLA Super Conference, January 29, 2009
2. 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?
3. 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.
11. Drupal: out of the box
blogs + comments
regular web pages
polls
forum
user profiles
taxonomies
...and a few other things
12. So, what does “modular”
mean?
turn on the features you want
ignore the ones you don’t want
add new “modules” as you build
13. But, what does it
really mean?
out of the box = a reasonably functional site
modules enabled = a super-duper, highly customized,
wicked functional site!
14. 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
18. library.wlu.ca
easier web site maintenance
web-based maintenance
incorporate different functionality
easily re-purpose content
just completed site redesign
sick of Dreamweaver!
19. 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
57. 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
72. Must-have modules
CCK
Views Webform
PathAuto IMCE
Faceted Search Google Analytics
FCKEditor/TinyMCE Backup and Migrate
Nice Menus
Akismet/CAPTCHA
73. 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
74. 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