This was my fifth DrupalCon, and they're always worth it. Its good to get an up-close reminder of all the talented people working on Drupal, and to broaden your scope beyond your own little world. All the sessions are up at the DrupalCon Austin website, and it is worth your time to watch some of them. Some of my recommendations are below (with headings linked their respective videos):
The Dries Keynote
The original creator (and still benevolent dictator) of Drupal, was thought-provoking as usual, although I think he's running out of things to talk about since Drupal 8 is taking longer to be released. It focused on creating personalized experiences and integrations with third party systems, which Drupal 8 will be particularly tuned for.
Don't Let Crappy Content From Ruining Your New Site
Good for both clients and agencies to consider. Content is important and deserves real investment in time and money. And its not just what we traditionally consider "content" (the stuff in the center of the page between the header, footer and sidebars.) It's the:
- navigation
- the length and number of the menu items
- categories
- video (quality and length)
- the graphics (quality and consistancy)
- ...and so much more
You'll also learn some guidlines on settting content goals, because you should have goals for each part of your content. There are also general tips on writing for the web based on online reading habits. For example, people read 20% slower, and they are task based when online. Most of your content is probably too long.
Responding to Responsive
Responsive design is hard. Really hard. This is a good rundown of some of the challenges and how one experienced designer has overcome them. This is not specific to Drupal, and is good for any webs designer to check out. Some of his recommendations:
- Don't let your tools dictate your style.
- Design systems and not pages (since you can't realistically design a mockup for every eventuality in responsive design).
- Don't be cool-shamed into not using Photoshop. Sometimes its the right tool for the job.
There are some guidelines you can use, but in the end, almost every project requires a custom process of some sort, because both clients' needs/expectations and designers' capabilties are are so varied.
Successful Requirements Gathering
This is good for both clients and agencies. For clients, you want to make sure whoever you hire is understanding you and asking the right questions, and agencies...well, you need to understand what you are building, of course. The speaker had great tips on getting to the root of the true problem, and speaking in a non-confrontational way.
- Engage in active listening (paying attention to the tone and body language)
- Repeat back what you thought you heard
- Transparent note-taking (sending out your compiled notes after the meeting)
- Knowing your stakeholders
His examples are informative and worth watching for.
Content Strategy Deliverables
I was not able to view this presentation at the conference, but I heard nothing but good things about it, and the buzz was high. Content Strategy is a bit of a buzzword that everyone talks about, but no one really knows what to do, but this talk helps give you some concrete goals to shoot for. "If you're content isn't useful to at least one of your audiences, I don't care what the owner says, it doesn't belong."
Battle for the Body Field
This was based on Jeff Eaton's own article published at A List Apart, and broke downt he challenges of the "anything goes" body field in today's technology landscape which rewards more structure and usability. Its a good breakdown of the problem, and the good news is that the solution is already possible, especially with Drupal. Good for site builders and developers, but also for those of you who own a Drupal site and want to know how best to implement (or how to tell your developers to implement) content authoring so it can eventually take advantage of integrations and technology, as well as just making it easier for to enter complicated structures of formatted content.
Overall Perceptions and General Takeaways
- Content Matters - Of course content matters. It's the whole point of content management systems and websites. But it seems like we're finally treating it like it matters, elevated to a class to sit alongside design and development in terms of importance in a project. And processes and thinking are becoming more maintream that will help us treat it like the first class citizen it deserves to be. I counted six sessions dedicated 100% to content strategy and implementation.
- Hosting is alive and well - Pantheon was bigger than ever at this conference, and they seem to have come into their own. Not just for Drupal anymore, they also have Wordpress plans. But they aren't the only player in town for outsourcing your git management and workflow for projects. Commerce Guys is getting ready to launch Platform.sh to help solve the same problems, but in a more flexible manner. And or course Aquia has its Cloud offering. That's no accident. There is clearly a lot of opportunity in this space for innovation and improvement.
- Commerce is the Killer App for Drupal - With Commerce Guys getting another round of funding, having a huge presence to help promote Commerce tools and integrations into Drupal, and Dries calling special attention to online commerce in his keynote (and Acquia offering their own Commerce hosting product), it just reinforced what has been true for the past 2 years. Ecommerce is growing and growing fast, but also changing in ways we can't 100% predict. And Drupal is well-poised to take advantage of this landscape. No other system brings together so well the convergence of content management and control, and flexible commerce capabilities. It merges everything Drupal is good at and presents a clear ROI.
If you went to DrupalCon what were your highlights of the conference? Or do you have any questions? Let us know in the comments!
