Drupal is an open source content management system with thousands of active community members behind it. A popular solution for both small and large scale websites, Drupal is extremely flexible and offers thousands of add-on modules. Drupal’s user experience (UX) layer, however, can be daunting and frustrating for beginners to learn. I am working on an exciting project in conjunction with the Drupal User Experience team and the Google Open Source team to help determine some of the key UX issues new users of Drupal encounter. The usability study will have participants (all Googlers) building a website and will help to gain insight into the stumbling blocks users encounter along the way.
The usability study will be streamed live and available for everyone to watch. The usability study is planned to take place February 1-3. Details about the live stream will be posted in the comments section below in the coming days. You can follow the discussion about this study on the Drupal.org wiki page.
Saturday, January 28 at Drupal Camp San Diego (SANDCamp) I will be presenting a talk called “Usability Studies for you and Drupal too!” on the fundamental principles of user experience and an introduction to the usability study. Jen Lampton from Chapter Three is co-presenting with me to talk about why UX is so important to Drupal, what the Drupal UX team has discovered through past studies, and how to get involved with the project.
Stay tuned for another post on the results, and make sure to check back on the Drupal.org wiki for details on how to watch live!
By Becky Gessler, Google Search Quality team
