Getting Content Administrators to Crush on Drupal
We're just getting back from a great weekend at DrupalCampLA. A lot of topics were raised there but the message that really came home for me was this: as Drupal service providers we have to get CMS administrators to fall in love with Drupal.
This is incredibly important in getting the people (not just developers) to buy in Drupal moving forward. It's not enough to get them to use Drupal because if they don't have a great experience they will blame the technology not the implementation. And if someone has a crappy CMS experience I'd rather it be some other CMS out there.
So how do we do this? Here are a few ideas that came up:
- Always tailor permissions (hide what doesn't matter)
- Create personalized screencasts of admin functionality
- Replace the default user list with a View
- Use the back ported D7 UI modules
I'll be following up on this list with more details later, but I'd love to hear your recipes as well. It's every service provider's responsibility to create great Drupal experiences - and get more people to crush on Drupal.
Comments
My one small contribution in this area was to get a separate Administration Guide (http://drupal.org/node/627152) teased out of the jumble that used to be the Drupal docs. Part of the challenge was just getting people to recognize that site administration is a distinct discipline separate from site building.
The administrator is the person responsible for keeping an *existing* site running smoothly from one day to the next. Yeah a given individual might, from time to time, take on other responsibilities like building a site from scratch but that work is not "administration".
There's lots of work that still needs to be done on the admin guide so please jump in if you have something to add or fix!
Tue, 08/10/2010 - 02:29
recommends admin_views module shipped with http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu to quickly climb up this ladder.
Mon, 03/28/2011 - 20:45
Admin Views is the best thing since sliced bread! I really like cloning the list view for each type of content and tailoring the filters and fields to match the type of content being listed. eg. events show dates, marquee elements thumbnails, etc.
Wed, 08/18/2010 - 02:31
I was unable to go to Drupal Camp this year. Do have any recommendations for sessions I should watch when they post the sessions?
Mon, 08/09/2010 - 19:18