As Lille, France, welcomed DrupalCon Lille 2023, the worldwide community of Drupal came together, creating a feeling of excitement and hope. In the midst of this lively conference, we had the good fortune to speak with Iryna Semenova and Stasya Paliienko, the talented project managers at Five Jars.

Here’s a pickle! So, in about a week, it’s my parents’ anniversary and my brother and I can’t decide between a smart TV or a chimney for the kitchen to gift them. But considering we already have one of each, although old-fashioned, it didn’t seem practical. That’s when it struck me - our parents are getting older, constantly manage household chores, and go to bed exhausted. How about gifting them a foot massager? They’ll love it! Now, the approach I took here is to focus on what my parents genuinely need. This approach mirrors today’s design philosophy. In this era of modern digital work, websites and applications must adhere to the needs and demands of their audience for better user engagement and customer retention. It’s when you put the user at the heart of your design process, and ensure their needs, preferences, and expectations, that’s when you’re moving in the right direction of delivering powerful digital services.  This approach is not just a buzzword, but a necessity for businesses and organizations looking to thrive in the competitive digital landscape. In this blog, we’ll talk about the what, why, and how of user-centric design for your website. We’ll further dig deeper into the principles involved and shed some light on the role of Drupal in fueling the booming scales of your UX/UI design.   What is User-Centered Web Design? User-centered web design is an integral part of user-centric design that focuses specifically on creating websites that prioritize user experience. When it comes to web design, the principles of user-centric design are essential for ensuring that the website is not just visually appealing, but also highly functional and intuitive for visitors. Principles of User-Centric Web Design User-centric web design follows several best practices and principles to create a design that resonates with users. Some of these principles include:1. User Interviews: Conducting user interviews to gather insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points gives you firsthand information which is invaluable for designing a website that caters to the user.2. User Research: With comprehensive user research, you can better understand the target audience, their behavior, and expectations. This knowledge informs design decisions.3. Usability Testing: Testing the website with actual users to identify any usability issues helps you in iterative improvements to enhance the user experience.4. Early Involvement of Users in the Design Process: Including users in the design process from the beginning ensures that their needs and desires are considered throughout the project, showcasing the inclusive nature of your workflow.5. Design Decisions Based on User Needs and Wants: Prioritizing features and functionalities based on what users need and want ensures that your website is not cluttered with unnecessary elements.6. Proper Feedback and Iterations: Continuously collecting feedback from your users and making iterative improvements based on their suggestions give invaluable responses for refining the design.7. Responsive Design: Ensuring that your website is responsive and displays well on various devices, including desktops, tablets, and mobile phones, is crucial. You should prioritize mobile optimization given the increasing use of smartphones.8. Accessible Design: Following web accessibility guidelines, such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), to make the site accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, is a must. Why is User-Centered Design Necessary? Our UX design team strongly believes (in fact, demanded that I mention this point in big bold letters, and I agree) that the user is the heart of the design process. Let me be more specific. User-centered design is a philosophy that places the user front and center in the design process. Every decision made, every feature added, and every detail crafted is done with the user in mind. It's about understanding the user's perspective, needs, and goals and using this knowledge to create a product or service that truly resonates with them. When the user is the focal point, the result is a design that aligns perfectly with the user's expectations, leading to a positive and engaging experience. While I believe that answers the above question, here are a few more points to stress on the subject: Increases User Engagement and Revenue When users find that a product or service effectively addresses their needs and preferences, they are more likely to stay engaged and interact with it. Such engagement often leads to increased revenue for businesses. Satisfied users are more likely to become loyal customers, making purchases, and recommending the product or service to others. Solves Real Problems By involving users in the design process, you can address direct problems once you learn about the real challenges and pain points of your website users. This results in products and services that are not only effective but also highly relevant to the user's daily life. This approach leads to developing genuine features and functionalities. Competitive Advantage Amidst a bunch of businesses that are rapidly in a rush to meet the market demands, you can stand out by offering superior user experiences. Providing a user experience that truly resonates with your target audience puts you ahead of your competitors and attracts a loyal customer base. Long-Term Sustainability Consistently meeting user needs and adapting to evolving requirements results in your products and services remaining relevant and resilient in the market. When your design takes user feedback and changing preferences into account, it is more likely to stand the test of time, ensuring long-term success. What Are the Benefits of User-Centric Web Design? Well, user-centric web design is not only beneficial for users but also for website owners. Some of the key advantages are listed below: 1. Higher User Engagement: A user-centric website is more likely to keep visitors engaged, as it caters to their needs and preferences. Engaged users usually explore the website, consume content, and take desired actions. 2. Customer Retention: By meeting user expectations and delivering a satisfying experience, user-centric design promotes customer retention. Satisfied users are more inclined towards returning to your website, and becoming loyal customers. 3. Lower Bounce Rates: When users find what they’re looking for and have a positive experience, they are less likely to leave the website immediately, leading to lower bounce rates. 4. Brand Loyalty: When users consistently have a great experience on your website, you can expect them to associate your brand with quality and reliability. 5. Product Growth: It not only ensures a great initial experience but also drives iterative improvements based on user feedback. Such a continuous enhancement leads to the growth of the product or service over time. How to Create a User-Centric Web Design  Creating a user-centric web design involves a series of steps and considerations. Here's a breakdown of the process: Understanding Your Customers:  Conduct market research to gain insights into user behavior, preferences, and pain points.  User Research: Conduct in-depth user research, including user interviews, surveys, and analytics to gather valuable insights. Create User Personas: Develop user personas that represent your typical users. These personas help in visualizing the needs and preferences of your target audience. Create User Journey Mapping: Map out the user's journey through your website. Understand the steps they take, the information they seek, and their interactions with the site. Information Architecture: Plan the structure of your website, ensuring that content is organized logically and intuitively. User Flows: Create user flows that outline the paths users take to accomplish specific tasks on your website. This helps in identifying potential pain points and areas for improvement. Task Flows: Define task flows that guide users through common actions on your website. Conduct Usability Testing: Test your website with real users to identify any usability issues. Pay attention to how users interact with the site and gather feedback for improvement. Collect Feedback and Iterate: Continuously collect user feedback and make iterative improvements to the website. Ways Drupal Can Help in Creating a Powerful User-Centric Design Drupal is a powerful content management system that can be of invaluable help in achieving a user-centric web design. Here are some of the ways in which Drupal can help: Responsive Design: Drupal is well-equipped to build responsive websites that adapt seamlessly to various devices, including desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.  Content Management and Personalization: Drupal allows you to organize and present content in a user-friendly manner. Personalization features enable you to tailor content to individual user preferences, enhancing the overall user experience. Accessibility: Drupal's admin themes, ensure that content creators of all abilities can efficiently manage the platform. Including the Olivero frontend theme further enhances accessibility, offering a visually pleasing and inclusive design that caters to a wide range of users. Multi-Language Support: Drupal makes it easy to create and manage content in multiple languages, ensuring that your website is accessible to a diverse user base. Content Visualization: Drupal's capabilities for content visualization allow you to present information in engaging and visually appealing ways. This is essential for capturing and maintaining user attention. Improved Performance: Advanced caching mechanisms and technologies like BigPipe significantly improve website performance. Such features enable faster page loading times, delivering a seamless user experience, and prioritizing performance in your user-centric design. Final Words User-centric design is not just a trend, but a critical aspect of creating successful digital products and websites. By putting the user at the heart of the design process, you can enhance user engagement, solve real problems, gain a competitive advantage, and achieve long-term sustainability. Drupal, with its versatile features, can be a valuable ally in achieving a powerful user-centric design for your website. By following best practices and principles, you can create a user-centric web design that resonates with your audience, leading to higher user engagement and lasting brand loyalty. P.S.:- A special note of thanks to Kashish Tripathi for his time and invaluable input that made this blog happen. :)  

Today we are talking about The Conflict Resolution Team, What they do, and Why they do it with guest Mark Casias. We’ll also cover Smart Trim as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/423

Topics

• What is the Conflict Resolution Team
• Why is the Conflict Resolution Team needed
• When / Why was the Conflict Resolution Team created
• What kinds of issues does the Conflict Resolution Team deal with
• Do you meet separately from discussing issues
• How do you handle burnout
• How does one become a member
• Why are you a member
• How do you submit an issue to the Conflict Resolution Team
• How many submissions do you get
• Do you have to include the Drupal Association
• Does the DA provide tools
• Does the Conflict Resolution Team need help
• Is there any specific training you look for
  • Code of conduct training
• Anything you would like to add

Resources

• Conflict Resolution Team

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Mark Casias - kanopi.com - markie

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Smart Trim

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to truncate provided user text in a more intelligent way than the “summary or trimmed” formatter in Drupal core? There’s a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: Originally created in Apr 2012
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.6 and 2.1.0 versions available, the latter compatible with Drupal 8, 9, and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
• Number of open issues
  • 74, 8 of which are active bugs against the 2.x branch
• Test coverage, using the new GitLab CI
• User guide for documentation
• Usage stats:
  • 66,919
• Maintainer(s):
  • Friends of the podcast, markie, ultimike, volkswagenchick
  • Module features and usage
  • Adds a variety of configuration options, in addition to the trim length:
  • Whether the length is characters or words
  • An optional suffix at the trim point e.g. ellipsis
  • Whether or not to add a more link after the trimmed text
  • Stripping HTML tags from the trimmed output
  • The ability to customize the output even more via twig template override
  • Because it works by providing a field formatter it works with entity display but also views, layout builder, and more
  • A module I’ve used many times myself and found extremely useful. I haven’t had a chance to try the latest release, but given the recent focus on UI improvements, documentation, and flexibility in the twig template it should be even better than I remember

Dear Readers,

"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness."

—Alejandro Jodorowsky, Film maker.

Literally? I doubt that. This quote by Alejandro Jodorowsky cannot be interpreted literally but metaphorically. It symbolizes the constraints and learned limitations prevalent in the human experience. The notion suggests that individuals accustomed to restrictive environments or societal norms may perceive natural behaviors as abnormal, not unlike the metaphorical birds in Alejandro Jodorowsky's insight.

Consider the story of a canary long confined within a cage. Upon release into the open, the canary might initially be intimidated by the freedom of the vast skies that other birds effortlessly navigate. Yet, in time, the canary adapts, spreads its wings, and takes flight. However, for us—humans like you and me—breaking free from our own mental and societal confines might not be as simple. This story illustrates how conditioning and familiarity with constraints can distort our perception of what's natural or possible. Some of us are like sharks; we only grow as big as our environment, and if it's a cage, we will forever remain caged. But once you break that shackle and find your niche, the growth can be monumental.

In a digital platform ecosystem, Drupal stands as a symbol of liberation from constraints, like the canary breaking free from its cage. In an ecosystem where popular software programs followed rigid and closed systems, Drupal was born to offer an open space for innovation and creativity. In website development, individuals constrained by traditional systems often face challenges when presented with the freedom and flexibility that Drupal offers.

Similar to the canary initially intimidated by the vast open sky, newcomers to Drupal may feel overwhelmed by its seemingly boundless possibilities. However, just as the canary adapts and embraces the open skies, individuals within the Drupal community, although initially daunted, flourish as they navigate and harness the platform's versatility.

Remember, the growth can be tremendous, but only if one breaks the shackles of constraints that hold them down.

On that note, we delve into last week's vibrant stories from The Drop Times (TDT):

DrupalCon Lille's echoes continue to resound within the Drupal Community, and TDT extends its gratitude for the overwhelming support received during our coverage. Despite numerous hurdles, particularly conducting our reporting remotely, The Drop Times embraced the challenge with ambition and soared high. Here's a recount of our successful execution of DrupalCon Lille coverage, "Way to Lille: How TDT Remotely Covered DrupalCon Lille 2023."

Throughout the week, attendees and organizations shared their invaluable feedback and experiences from DrupalCon Lille 2023. Tigin Öztürk, Irina Povjakel, SearchStax, SystemSeed, and ZenSource generously shared personal insights and event summaries. Furthermore, Scott Massey from Morpht discussed key strategies and challenges for Drupal migration in the light of Driesnote. Acquia conducted a webinar on DrupalCon Lille recap on November 02, 2023.

A new platform, "Innovation Ideas," emerged within the Drupal community, drawing inspiration from the successful Pitch-Burgh Innovation Contest. Our sub-editor, Elma John, conversed with Ricardo Marcelino to explore this initiative further.

TDT compiled a list of books aimed at decoding Drupal. Whether you're a developer or a marketer, these books have you covered.

The conclusion of Drupal GovCon Bethesda 2023 was marked with success. The Splash Awards and Drupal Business Day in Mannheim, Germany, set for November 10, will feature 28 selected Drupal projects competing across eight categories.

Notably, Drupal's debut appearance at Web Summit Lisbon and the forthcoming LocalGov Drupal Week 2023 are anticipated milestones for the Drupal community. TDT has also published a list of events within the Drupal Community for the week.

With the transition of Drupal 9 reaching its end of life on November 01, the focus has now shifted to Drupal 10 compatibility. Meanwhile, as Drupal 7 perseveres, Kristen Pol's recent blog post, shared by QuantCDN, navigates through the history of Drupal 7 and explores the available end-of-life (EOL) options. Tag1 Consultancy commenced a series on Scary Drupal migration stories featuring Janez Urevc in the past week.

On the security front, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued an advisory for Drupal on November 02, 2023, regarding a vulnerability affecting various operating systems and the Drupal content management system. Simultaneously, a security update for the Paragraphs admin module in Drupal addressed a moderate risk vulnerability. Vallic has shared a blog post on simplifying Drupal updates using GitHub Actions.

A growing momentum within the Drupal community highlights DDEV as the official local development environment for Drupal, as outlined by Kevin Quillen in a recent blog post. Furthermore, The Argyle Report spotlighted the thriving global Drupal Development Service industry, presenting insights from a new report by Global Market Vision titled 'Global Drupal Development Service Market: Size, Share, Price, Trends, Report, and Forecast 2023-2030'.

Several articles addressed the optimization of Drupal sites, focusing on fundamental SEO practices by Otatech and security checklists by Firas Gunhaim. Reuben Walker, in Dev, recently compared Symfony Flex's Recipes and Drupal's emerging Recipes Initiative, examining their respective functionalities and operational frameworks. The latest article by Golems gives an outlook into the future of Drupal themes.

This encapsulates the highlights from The Drop Times. We invite you to share any suggestions, contributions, or feedback, as we sincerely value your engagement within our community. Thank you for being part of this journey. Until our next edition, keep exploring, sharing, and embracing the power of knowledge!

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for regular updates.

Warm Regards,
Alka Elizabeth
Sub-editor, The Drop Times

Co-written by Pal Patel, Solutions Architect, WWPS - Amazon Web Services

In the intricate landscape of government technology, where innovation and security coalesce, the potent combination of Acquia and Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers enterprise digital experience capabilities for public sector agencies. This empowers such agencies with the technical intricacies of Acquia's Drupal prowess fused with AWS's cloud infrastructure resulting in a new era of digital excellence for federal, state, and local government agencies.

Evolving with Drupal: A Technical Revolution

Shifting from conventional platforms to Drupal is a strategic leap that empowers organizations to harness the power of open-source technology, fostering rapid development, scalability, and customization.

Mark and Dave discuss how Drupal 9’s end-of-life status relates to Drupal 7 as well as recap some of the Drupal 7 end-of-life discussions that have happened at GovCon.

Migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 is a significant upgrade for your website. While the process can be complex, even for experienced Drupal developers, it’s essential to make informed decisions along the way. As a reliable Drupal development company, we understand that a successful migration requires careful planning and execution. In this guide, we’ll answer the most common questions about Drupal migration to help you navigate this transition smoothly.

In this blog, we will shed light on some of the “what” and “how” of Drupal 7 to 10 Migration doubts and provide solutions from our experts. So, let’s get down to the most common Drupal FAQs.

Explore the world of Drupal with this curated list of books. From mastering Drupal 10 to delving into module development, optimizing performance, and digital marketing, discover the essential resources for Drupal enthusiasts. Whether you're a developer or marketer, these books have you covered.

Essential Modules for Drupal 8 & 9