@digitalkulcha So, it's a lost cause then? Don't the people at the #D7UX project ;)

RT @gillesdemarty: .@leisa @markboulton Blogger says #d7alpha usability great. better than wordpress, lacks media manager http://j.mp/abmHvQ #d7ux #drupal

.@leisa @markboulton Blogger says #d7alpha usability great. better than wordpress, lacks media manager http://j.mp/abmHvQ #d7ux #drupal

This is an attempt to overcome the impasse over at Accessibility improvements for vertical tabs.

As I have already stated elsewhere the general problem with regard to accessibility and usability is that one size doesn't fit all.

So we should make some of the accessibility improvements more configurable. One way which even allows for configuration on an individual user level is a separate theme for accessibility settings.

I have created a Zen sub-theme which allows setting some options which affect the visual appearance of the Drupal site. This is only a very first stab and more of a proof of concept, though.

(Note: I had to add an additional file extension to the zip-file for attaching the theme to this post.)

AttachmentSize aczensible.zip_.txt139.17 KB AcZenSible_vertical_tabs_settings.png4.04 KB Zen Task Force

One of the core profile issues is when a user is adding a URL to their page. They must include http:// in their link. don't know of any other site on the net that asks for this when a URL is requested. This issue existed in 6.x also. The error message doesn't even ask for htttp:// to be included just says: The value provided for "URL field-name" is not a valid URL. That's when a person includes "www" when filling out the form, so i definitely see this as an issue. This is for the User field: URL under "profile configuration".

I'm not even sure if this belongs here because it seems like it would be a simple mod and very much needed for a simpler drupal experience for both people trying to create useable websites, and for the people who join their sites.

Ideally the user could type in youtube.com/user/xxx (or equivalent), and it would become a link. i.e. no http or even www necessary, or at least just a "www". Either way error message should aid the user in filling out their profile page, rather than just tell them they are doing something wrong and not helping them through the course of action.

How does your proposal meet the stated goals of the Knight Drupal Initiative program?: 

It addresses the idea of making Drupal a straight forward experience for people of all abilities.

How long will your project take to complete?: 

I can't imagine very long

How will you implement and distribute your project?: 

Through people more knowledgeable than me on affecting change within the Drupal web tool

What is your total budget estimate and how much funding are you requesting: 

not requesting funding

Mark Boulton Design Drupal 7 Project

I have received tremendous respons on this subject until now.
50+ comments on the discussion on GDO http://groups.drupal.org/node/45468
100+ people attended the real life Event WordPress / Drupal http://jbingold.com/content/rencontre-des-deux-mondes-wordpress-et-drupal

And today a twiit from a WordPress strategist http://www.twitter.com/roprice

@JBingold That session proposal looks terrific.. there's no question of the need for a BuddyPress equivalent in Drupal. Thanks
@JBingold a Drupal evangelist who recognizes the value of WordPress and fosters non-childish discussions about the two. Nice to see that.

So please make sure you vote for our sessions :
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/how-and-why-make-drupal-ult...
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/communitysocial-networking-...

Vote for both sessions because I think blogging and social neworking / community are two differents use case.

And yes there in the bussiness perspective there is realy strategie to discuss about WordPress/BuddyPress and Software as a service.

Have look at the attached graph "wordpress + social" is rocking up

Jean-Baptiste Ingold
PS Still open to other panelist. Perhaps OpenAtrium of OpentPublish can be nice starting plateform to build on for this ready to use profile and service. The feature rocks...

OpenPublish

The Paris Drupal Commerce Sprint has been a huge success for the project. AF83 has been an incredible host, granting us use of the conference room for the full week, the espresso machine throughout the day, and of course DamZ. I flew out with Mike to represent Commerce Guys, and we gleaned some excellent advice from the folks who came in from i-KOS. It was super helpful to have Bojhan and fago join us to better plan our IA / User Experience and Rules integration. What a great team!

Unfortunately, the end of the week has come too soon for me to spend more than a few minutes on a wrap-up post. We're still in the process of moving our discussion notes into the forums and issue tracker. Those notes will communicate our proposed implementation of Orders / Carts and Price handling on Drupal 7 / Rules and hopefully garner some global feedback.

read more

Test drive with us!

We suggest you read the details and tips here, but if you'd like to go ahead and try this out now, just go to http://localize.staging.drupal.org, enter drupal/drupal for the HTTP authentication prompt when requested, then log in with your drupal.org username and password and play around. Have fun and provide us feedback! Thanks for your help.

Looking back a bit

The main translation user interface of localize.drupal.org as we know it today is a result of collaboration between myself and the amazing Young Hahn of Development Seed. His work with the user interface covered making a previously unsexy interface more appealing and useful. However, given how early that was done, we did not know the actual user scenarios of language teams having contributors of all levels.

read more

As Git becomes more popular and widely used a GUI becomes even more important. This was especially important when Drupal recently looked at what version control system it was going to switch to. (If you're interested in the Drupal (unofficial) decision checkout Angie Byrons post on groups.drupal.org)

When I surveyed the Git GUI landscape SmartGit stood above the rest for your standard user.

read more

Just got to look a little deeper at the #Drupal 7 backend. Lookin' nice. Definitely more useable. Good job #D7UX

@markboulton Milk, no sugar thanks. Also, I've just discoveed the joys of Drupal. Can see the direction you're going with #d7ux

Drupal 7 theme design (#d7ux) versus Admin 2 Rubik 6 theme. Which one is better? http://wiitel.com/cms/node/9

Using custom map tiles and open geo data to build a hyper local news tracker

Managing News ships with its maps and geotagging features preconfigured for tracking global news on a world map. But user interface improvements in Managing News Beta 7 make it easy to use an alternate map layer and import custom location data so you can track news in a specific geographic region.

This screencast shows how I was able to tailor my maps to focus on the city of Washington, DC and plot the stories published on various neighborhood blogs. I used open geographic data from the DC government and the DC Nightvision tileset from MapBox.

read more

Download Podcast 29

Join Mike Anello as he talks to Jesse Feiler, the author of Sams Teach Yourself Drupal in 24 Hours from Pearson Education.

Mike and Jesse talk about the beginnings of database-driven web sites, teaching the concepts of Drupal, usability in Drupal, Russians and COBOL (seriously!), and who should really be responsible for your web site.

read more

Now that this project has started to move, I've started to think about it less in terms of something that I can build myself and more in terms of a bigger project that lots of different people can contribute to, usually in a relatively small way.

One of the biggest problems with projects like this is reaching consensus with regards to what the finished project will look like. I think that the project could be really held back if we spend too much time on this sort of thing; conversely, it will really fly if it is developed in such a way that anyone is able to muck in when they have five minutes to spare.

I have therefore slightly remodelled the main wiki page so that it is easier to contribute in the following ways:

• There are now four "streams": beginners (BEG), site building and administration (SBA), theming (THE), and development (DEV).
• Under each of these streams there is a header titled "Stuff that definitely needs to be covered in the {name of stream} stream.
• If you want to see something covered in a particular stream, add it under that header. You can add anything, as big or as small as you like. For example, the THE stream should really cover preprocess functions. Don't worry that this is a big subject; just add it to the list. Someone else can break it up into smaller chunks (or you can, if you really want to!). The point here is that we can all quickly note down what we think each stream should cover; we'll worry about the rest later.
• Similarly, there are other areas of the page that you can use to quickly add individual tutorials, or websites that contain a number of tutorials. Again, don't worry about the details: just get stuff down on paper. We'll deal with organising all of this stuff later.
• Finally, if you are a Drupal newbie, you are the most valuable people of all for this project. Note down your own experience of learning Drupal: what you wanted to learn, how you went about learning it, what resources were useful, where you got stuck. Someone has already done this on the wiki; just follow their lead, or add your own wiki page if you like. Even if you're a more experienced Drupal user, you're going to be learning new stuff all the time: please add your own experiences to the wiki.

Does this all make sense? Anyone got any questions or ideas?

Documentation Team

@jbomberz heh, true :) we clearly did not optimize for URL-typists #d7ux

http://blog.jasonbartz.com/2010/02/first-impressions-of-drupal-7/ sounds encouraging. #d7ux #makethesecondandthirdandeteceterarocktoo

If there were a first outline of a Views 3 UX plan, we'd announce that Views 3 UX season is open!

Views defines a big part of how site-builders learn to think about slicing and dicing their content & other stuff. Inviting interaction designers to join in architecting the user interface for the upcoming version 3.

And that in short review, we identified a first three main areas that need work:

• "Too busy! Everything all the time. Provide an easier path into the jungle please."
• "There's got to be something else we can do for that bottom drawer settings part."
• "This overriding thing confuses the heck out of me."

And we'd want to get an idea which one those hurts most. And whatever else needs serious work (prognosis: "Everything!" :-)

Merlinofchaos would provide a short summary of what's new in Views 3 and the UI challenges as he sees them:

…

Then, I'd reference back to the main mantra we used for Views 2:

What? > Where? > As a? > Each item as
(e g. Nodes>Page>Table>Fields)

[link to concept model] [and the other main design threads]

And we'd contemplate a bit on if it still befits V3.

Also:

• We should do a bit more user observation then we did for Views 2. Find common tasks, optimize for them. test.
• There's room for your questions & suggestions, too:
• Clone a display: http://drupal.org/node/348975

Usability

So we're this close to an alpha for the Media module (for d7). There are only a few outstanding critical alpha-blocking issues that need to be resolved. I'd hoped to have it today, but it looks like it'll probably be Monday.

Next week is the time for you to jump in if you're interested in developing for the project! It's been loads of fun, from the initial discussions and plans over a year ago with arthurf, dopry, drewish, Roger López, myself and others, to fantastic core Drupal 7 integration of stream wrappers by pwolanin and GSOC student jmstacey, to some powerhouse #d7ux magic by mverbaar and Jody Lynn, to the latest overhaul introducing Media fieldable entities (with an eye for core Drupal 8) and WYSIWYG integration by JacobSingh and dipen chaudhary, with some potential upcoming fine-tuning from jQuery guru dmitrig01.

If you're interested, join us in IRC at #drupal-media. After giving the module a spin (you'll need Drupal 7 Alpha 1, Media, Styles, and WYSIWYG + CKEditor, and optionally Media: Flickr and/or Media: YouTube), you should subscribe to the Issue queue. (You can also see recent screenshots at AaronWinborn.com.)

Drupal Kata

We are now witnessing on the one hand the creation of more complex sites using WordPress with integration with social web and BuddyPress (a fully functional community website installation profile), and on the other hand a much more user friendly version 7 of Drupal and lots of pre-packaged products as OpenAtrium and OpenPublish.

And by this post I’m asking the Drupal community what can be our response to BudyPress ?
Sould we build a networking website distribution ?

For this session or panel discution I would like to use the result of several "focus groups" :

The first one being http://lacantine.org/events/remix-la-cantine-wordpress-drupal
Next Tuesday, with two other web2.0 consultants of the WordPress' world, I am holding this meeting. We wish to facilitate the exchange between "two worlds": Drupal, seen as more complex and used by geeks; WordPress, seen as more flexible for publishers.

This is common belief but the boundaries are moving.

Speakers confirmed:
Media: Exchange between Rue89.com (Drupal) and Quebec89 (WP) very similar website at three years interval.
Online Community: Mars 22 and La Netscouade. Facebook-like community website one in BuddyPress the other in Drupal.

The subject is not new

There has been several threads already
http://groups.drupal.org/node/21837
http://groups.drupal.org/node/16669
http://groups.drupal.org/node/17775
http://groups.drupal.org/node/21837

A synthesis is to be done.

Looking for co-presenters

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