Ask anyone about Drupal’s strengths, and they’ll talk about content modeling: custom content types, views, workflows, and permissions that can be built entirely through the UI. No other CMS matches Drupal’s flexibility for complex information architectures.

But once the backend is in place, you still need to make it usable and beautiful for real people. And that’s where things get hard.

Drupal theming is expensive.

Theming in Drupal has historically been expensive and complex. Unlike WordPress or Webflow, you can’t just drop in a template and go. A proper Drupal theme requires specialized knowledge of:

You’ve probably heard, “The first rule of ARIA is don’t use ARIA". This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the movie Fight Club, but the reality is more nuanced. The real rule is: “Don’t use ARIA, unless you need to.” The TLDR: lean on native HTML whenever possible, but when HTML alone isn’t enough, ARIA fills the gaps. So when do we reach for ARIA in Drupal theming?

In this article, we’ll walk through some of the most common ARIA attributes you’ll encounter when building Drupal sites.

What is ARIA?

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of HTML attributes that give assistive technologies (like screen readers) more context about elements.

For example, ARIA can:

Last week’s webinar brought together three voices helping to shape the Drupal AI Initiative: Paul Johnson, Christoph Breidert, and Kristen Pol. Together, they painted a picture of where Drupal is headed with AI, and what the community is already learning through direct experimentation.

Watch the full webinar recording on The Drupal Association YouTube Channel.

Paul opened with key takeaways from the global AI survey. 79.2% of respondents reported using AI in their everyday work, and over 61% of organisations were already running internal experiments. One message was clear: AI isn’t theoretical anymore. People are trying, testing, and shipping.

The majority of respondents, 79.2%, reported that they were using AI in their everyday work.

— Paul Johnson

Christoph followed with a look at what’s driving the momentum behind the Drupal AI initiative. He emphasized that Drupal’s open and flexible nature makes it a strong fit for AI innovation, and that the initiative was a natural response to the rapid experimentation already happening across agencies and contributors.

The Drupal AI initiative was launched not so long ago, and it just came out of that many companies are of course experimenting with AI. Drupal has always been at the forefront of innovation.

— Christoph Breidert

Kristen brought the discussion back to the roadmap, reminding us that all of this work depends on collaboration, visibility, and good stewardship. She also highlighted that the initiative has gained traction because contributors are sharing back, not just building in silos.

We couldn’t have analyzed any results if we didn’t have any, so appreciate that. This is only working because people are contributing back.

— Kristen Pol

The takeaway for me? The initiative is gaining momentum because it’s being built with the community, not for it. If you want to get involved, this is the moment. Whether you’re experimenting with use cases, building tools, or helping shape the messaging, the door is wide open and we’re eager for the help.

The full webinar is available to watch on the Drupal Association YouTube Channel.

Want to Help?

There are many ways to plug in: contribute to the codebase, share your experiments, join the Slack channel, or attend the next webinar. The Drupal AI Initiative is making room for builders, strategists, and communicators alike.

Dependency Injection in Drupal