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nancydsmithus · 5 years ago

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Great Expectations: Using Story Principles To Anticipate What Your User Expects

John Rhea

2019-10-21T13:30:59+02:002019-10-21T12:04:49+00:00

Whether it’s in a novel, the latest box office smash, or when Uncle Elmer mistook a potted cactus for a stress ball, we all love stories. There are stories we love, stories we hate, and stories we wish we’d never experienced. Most of the good stories share structure and principles that can help us create consistent website experiences. Experiences that speak to user expectations and guide them to engage with our sites in a way that benefits both of us.

In this article, we’ll pull out and discuss just a few examples of how thinking about your users’ stories can increase user engagement and satisfaction. We’ll look at deus ex machina, ensemble stories, consistency, and cognitive dissonance, all of which center on audience expectations and how your site is meeting those expectations or not.

We can define a story as the process of solving a problem. Heroes have an issue, and they set out on a quest to solve it. Sometimes that’s epic and expansive like the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and sometimes it’s small and intimate such as Driving Miss Daisy or Rear Window. At its core, every story is about heroes who have a problem and what they do to solve it. So too are visits to a website.

The user is the hero, coming to your site because they have a problem. They need to buy a tchotchke, hire an agency or find the video game news they like. Your site can solve that problem and thus play an important role in the user’s story.

Deus Ex Machina

It’s a term meaning “god from the machine” that goes back to Greek plays — even though it’s Latin — when a large, movable scaffolding or “machine” would bring out an actor playing a god. In the context of story, it’s often used to describe something that comes out of nowhere to solve a problem. It’s like Zeus showing up at the end of a play and killing the villain. It’s not satisfying to the audience. They’ve watched the tension grow between the hero and the villain and feel cheated when Zeus releases the dramatic tension without solving that tension. They watched a journey that didn’t matter because the character they loved did not affect the ending.

The danger of deus ex machina is most visible in content marketing. You hook the audience with content that’s interesting and applicable but then bring your product/site/whatever in out of nowhere and drop the mic like you won a rap battle. The audience won’t believe your conclusion because you didn’t journey with them to find the solution.

If, however, the author integrates Zeus into the story from the beginning, Zeus will be part of the story and not a convenient plot device. Your solutions must honor the story that’s come before, the problem and the pain your users have experienced. You can then speak to how your product/site/whatever solves that problem and heals that pain.

State Farm recently launched a “Don’t Mess With My Discount!” campaign:

Kim comes in to talk to a State Farm rep who asks about a Drive Safe and Save discount. First, for the sake of the discount, Kim won’t speed up to make a meeting. Next, she makes herself and her child hold it till they can get home driving the speed limit. Last, in the midst of labor, she won’t let her partner speed up to get them to the hospital. (Don’t mess with a pregnant lady or her discount.) Lastly, it cuts back to Kim and the agent.

State Farm’s branding and their signature red color are strong presences in both bookend scenes with the State Farm representative. By the end, when they give you details about their “Drive Safe and Save” discount you know who State Farm is, how they can help you, and what you need to do to get the discount.

It’s not a funny story that’s a State Farm commercial in disguise, but a State Farm commercial that’s funny.

“

Throughout the ad, we know State Farm’s motivations and don’t feel duped into liking something whose only goal is to separate us from our money. They set the expectation of this story being an ad in the beginning and support that throughout.

Another Approach

Sometimes putting your name upfront in the piece might feel wrong or too self-serving. Another way to get at this is to acknowledge the user’s struggle, the pain the user or customer already feels. If your site doesn’t acknowledge that struggle, then your product/site/whatever seems detached from their reality, a deus ex machina. But if your content recognizes the struggle they’ve been through and how your site can solve their problem, the pitch for deeper engagement with your site will be a natural progression of the user’s story. It will be the answer they’ve been searching for all along.

Take this testimonial from Bizzabo:

Bizzabo solved a real world problem for Greenbook. (Large preview)

It shows the user where Greenbook was, i.e. mired in tedious tasks, and how Bizzabo helped them get past tedium to do what Greenbook says they do best: make memorable experiences. Bizzabo doesn’t come out of the woodwork to say “I’m awesome” or solve a problem you never had. They have someone attesting to how Bizzabo solved a real problem that this real customer needed to be fixed. If you’re in the market to solve that problem too, Bizzabo might be the place to look.

Ensemble Stories

Some experiences, like some stories, aren’t about a single person. They’re about multiple people. If the story doesn’t give enough attention to each member, that person won’t seem important or like a necessary part of the story. If that person has a role in the ending, we feel cheated or think it’s a deus ex machina event. If any character is left out of a story, it should change the story. It’s the same way with websites. The user is the story’s hero, but she’s rarely the only character. If we ignore the other characters, they won’t feel needed or be interested in our websites.

Sometimes a decision involves multiple people because a single user doesn’t have the authority to decide. For instance, Drupalcon Seattle 2019 has a “Convince Your Boss” page. They showcase the benefits of the conference and provide materials to help you get your boss to agree to send you.

You could also offer a friends-and-family discount that rewards both the sharer and the sharee. (Yes, as of this moment, “sharee” is now a word.) Dropbox does this with their sharing program. If you share their service with someone else and they create an account, you get additional storage space.

You get extra space, you get extra space, and you get extra space (when you invite a friend). (Large preview)

But you don’t have to be that explicit about targeting other audiences than the user themselves. In social networks and communities, the audience is both the user and their friends. The site won’t reach a critical mass if you don’t appeal to both. I believe Facebook beat MySpace early on by focusing on the connection between users and thus serving both the user and their friends. MySpace focused on individual expression. To put it another way, Facebook included the user’s friends in their audience while MySpace didn’t.

Serving Diametrically Opposed Heros

Many sites that run on ad revenue also have to think about multiple audiences, both the users they serve and the advertisers who want to reach those users. They are equally important in the story, even if their goals are sometimes at odds. If you push one of these audiences to the side, they’ll feel like they don’t matter. When all you care about is ad revenue, users will flee because you’re not speaking to their story any longer or giving them a good experience. If advertisers can’t get good access to the user then they won’t want to pay you for ads and revenue drops off.

Just about any small market newspaper website will show you what happens when you focus only on advertisers’ desires. Newspaper revenue streams have gone so low they have to push ads hard to stay alive. Take, for instance, the major newspaper from my home state of Delaware, the News Journal. The page skips and stutters as ad content loads. Click on any story and you’ll find a short article surrounded by block after block after block of ad content. Ads are paying the bills but with this kind of user experience, I fear it won’t be for long.

Let me be clear that advertisers and users do not have to be diametrically opposed, it’s just difficult to find a balance that pleases both. Sites often lean towards one or the other and risk tipping the scales too far either way. Including the desires of both audiences in your decisions will help you keep that precarious balance.

One way to do both is to have ads conform to the essence of your website, meaning the thing that makes your site different i.e. the “killer app” or sine qua non of your website. In this way, you get ads that conform to the reason the users are going to the site. Advertisers have to conform to the ad policy, but, if it really hits on the reason users are going to the site, advertisers should get much greater engagement.

On my own site, 8wordstories.com, ads are allowed, but they’re only allowed an image, eight words of copy, and a two-word call to action. Thus when users go to the site to get pithy stories, eight words in length, the advertisements will similarly be pithy and short.

Advertisers and users do not have to be diametrically opposed, it’s just difficult to find a balance that pleases both.

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Consistency

The hero doesn’t train as a medieval knight for the first half of the story and then find herself in space for the second half. That drastic shift can make the audience turn on the story for dashing their expectations. They think you did a bait-and-switch, showing them the medieval story they wanted and then switching to a space story they didn’t want.

If you try to hook users with free pie, but you sell tubas, you will get lots of pie lovers and very few tuba lovers. Worse yet is to have the free pie contingent on buying a tuba. The thing they want comes with a commitment or price tag they don’t. This happens a lot with a free e-book when you have to create an account and fill out a lengthy form. For me, that price has often been too high.

Make sure the way you’re hooking the audience is consistent with what you want them to read, do, or buy. If you sell tubas offer a free tuba lesson or polishing cloth. This’ll ensure they want what you provide and they’ll think of you the next time they need to buy a tuba.

That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t offer free pie, but it shouldn’t get them in the door, it should push them over the edge.

Audible gives you a thirty-day free trial plus an audio book to keep even if you don’t stay past the trial. They’re giving you a taste of the product. When you say, “I want more.” You know where to get it.

While not offering a freebie, Dinnerly (and most of the other bazillion meal kit delivery companies) offers a big discount on your first few orders, encouraging new customers to try them out. This can be an especially good model for products or services that have fixed costs with enticing new customers.

Hmmm… maybe they should offer free pie. (Large preview)

Cognitive Dissonance

There’s another danger concerning consistency, but this one’s more subtle. If you’re reading a medieval story and the author says the “trebuchet launched a rock straight and true, like a spaceship into orbit.” It might be an appropriate allusion for a modern audience, but it’s anachronistic in a medieval story, a cognitive dissonance. Something doesn’t quite make sense or goes against what they know to be true. In the same way, websites that break the flow of their content can alienate their audience without even meaning to (such as statistics that seem unbelievable or are so specific anyone could achieve them).

112% of people reading this article are physically attractive.

(Here’s lookin’ at you, reader.)

This article is the number one choice by physicians in Ohio who drive Yugos.

(Among other questions, why would a European car driving, Ohioan Doctor read a web user experience article?)

These “statistics” break the flow of the website because they make the user stop and wonder about the website’s reputability. Any time a user is pulled out of the flow of a website, they must decide whether to continue with the website or go watch cat videos.

Recently, I reviewed proposals for a website build at my day job. The developers listed in the proposal gave me pause. One with the title “Lead Senior Developer” had seven years of experience. That seemed low for a “lead, senior” developer, but possible. The next guy was just a “web developer” but had twenty years of experience. Even if that’s all correct, their juxtaposition made them look ridiculous. That cognitive dissonance pulled me out of the flow of the proposal and made me question the firm’s abilities.

Similarly poor quality photos, pixelated graphics, unrelated images, tpyos, mispelllings, weird bolding and anything else that sticks out potato can cause cognitive dissonance and tank a proposal or website (or article). The more often you break the spell of the site, the harder it will be for clients/users to believe you/your product/site/thing are as good as you say. Those cat videos will win every time because they always meet the “lolz” expectation.

Conclusion

Users have many expectations when they come to your site. Placing your users in the context of a story helps you understand those expectations and their motivations. You’ll see what they want and expect, but also what they need. Once you know their needs, you can meet those needs. And, if you’ll pardon my sense of humor, you can both …live happily ever after.

(cct, ra, yk, il)

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prevajconsultants · 6 years ago

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Learn how we've partnered with @acquia to help bring contextual commerce - the ability to sell products directly within content experiences - to all: https://t.co/tTmQ7v8Amg #DrupalCon @DrupalConNa

— BigCommerce (@BigCommerce) April 10, 2019

https://goo.gl/K5WYIg https://goo.gl/50Wsae

#Bigcommerce Development Company #BigCommerce Web Design & Theme Development Services #BigCommerce De

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americanfreighttrucking · 6 years ago

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BigCommerce for Drupal Brings Customized Shopping Experiences to Drupal Community

Partner-developed headless Drupal module creates innovative, content-rich commerce

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BigCommerce, the leading SaaS ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established brands, today announced BigCommerce for Drupal, a headless commerce module built specifically for the open-source content management system (CMS), at DrupalCon Seattle. Developed in partnership with Acro Media

View On WordPress

#Trucking News

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ryj--us · 5 years ago

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function-marketing · 6 years ago

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BigCommerce Announces BigCommerce for Drupal for Customized Shopping Experiences

BigCommerce, today announced BigCommerce for Drupal, a headless commerce module built specifically for the open-source content management system (CMS), at DrupalCon Seattle.

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yenicikti · 6 years ago

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BigCommerce Announces BigCommerce for Drupal for Customized Shopping Experiences

BigCommerce, today announced BigCommerce for Drupal, a headless commerce module built specifically for the open-source content management system (CMS), at DrupalCon Seattle.

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inpeaks · 6 years ago

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The software which is used for content management is called Drupal software. It is used to create many applications and websites. Drupal has standard features like reliable performance, content authoring, and excellent security.

Apart from flexibility, modularity is one of the main principles. Tools are used to build the structured content and versatile gives dynamic web experience.

It is also used to create integrated digital frameworks. The users can extend with one or many add-ons. Drupal’s functionality is extended with modules. Content presentation is customized by using themes.

Drupal bundles are used as starter-kits. Drupal’s core abilities are enhanced to mix and match these components. In the infrastructure, Drupal is integrated with external and many other applications. Comparing to Drupal, no other management software is scalable and powerful.

The software which has open source in the Drupal project. Anyone can use, share it others, work on and download. By using this principle the Drupal is built with globalism, collaboration, and innovation.

Under the General Public License terms are distributed. Drupal is always free and there are no licensing fees. Click To Tweet

In the word, Drupal community is the open source communities and largest one. More than 1000000 are working together like designers, strategists, editors, passionate developers, trainers, coordinators, and sponsors.

Drupal is built on creating documentation, support, sharing networking opportunities and much more. To push the Drupal project forward, in open source are commitment are shared. New members are welcomed always.

DRUPAL 8:

In Drupal history, the biggest update is Drupal 8. Development Content is easy to create and built-in theme are designed responsively. For complex ecosystems, integration tool helps to make the great hub and 100 languages are available.

Time, imagination and experience are contributed by 4500 people, organization, and companies. Over 200 improves and new features are the updated results. By creating on Drupal 8 with new cloud technology, with dedicated resources that are the demand for scalable.

Tool for Systems:

Drupal 8 have the strongest link for the new supply chain of content and the new suite of tools. Interacting with countless applications, deliver in fast with an enhanced entity.

Without sacrificing accessibility and security they are using decoupling progress to break free from the back-end. With Drupal 8 any integrated experience is built that is imagined.

Simple Ways for Editors:

Work efficiently and images are uploaded by drag and drop. With more modern devices, compelling content is created. Quick changes are made by choosing content editing with the help of tools needed.

Administrator powers:

The components are easily customized like admin tools, views, blocks, lists, and more than before. Data are controlled how to displayed without the single line of code. Great experience in managing and creating the content.

Accessibility:

Drupal 8 is accessible for everyone with extensive support, not only for font sizes and color contrast. It is easy to understand for the people with disabilities to create structure. HTML5 helps in creating interactions.

New Front Page:

To make over the front page of Drupal.org, launched by DrupalCon Nashville. There are three key personas resigned to focus on addressing under research-based for Drupal.org like content editors/marketers, developers, and agencies.

On the front page, it simplifies the call by the new redesign and personas are directed to a more focused funnel, to find that information which is need have to be ensured.

DRUPAL Initiative Promoting:

By convincing the people who are used in the past older version, to give new version Drupal 8 and by asking the community to help in bringing the Drupal to the audiences, announcing the ‘Promote Drupal’ initiating new by kicking off DrupalCon by redesigning the front page.

Updating the AI and Top Navigation:

Depends on the user’s persona along changes in the front page, the major area of the site for navigation more logical structure is provided.

Non Profit Solutions are Promoted and Built with Drupal:

Around the Globe, the power of NGO’s Drupal for Nonprofits is promoted, by the effort to Promote Drupal they have launched the Nonprofit Solution page in new. To reach and maximize the impact to extend the global Nonprofit organizations, Drupal has been long and well-recognized choice.

DRUPAL Initiatives are Simplified:

At DrupalCon Nashville the founder Dries Buytaert’s in the project proposes to simplify Drupal by series of initiatives, the user experience of content editors and site administrators to improve and adapt by lowering the barriers.

To improve Drupal core development servicessome of these initiatives features are used and the evaluator experience is focused on others and managed with Drupal Association are collaborated.

Core initiatives teams are collaborated in particular with Drupal Association on:

On Drupal.org, the good discovery experience.

Better start getting documentation.

To standardize the build process in Drupal site, the relationship of Drupal Core’s with composer are improved.

For non-technical decision makers, Drupal is promoted.

The collaboration is between Drupal’s core team, Drupal Association and a variety of volunteers in the community, and it’s not easy or quick for these initiatives.

GDPR and DRUPAL.ORG:

EU passed the GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation) by last year and it is initiated on 25th may, 2018, they are preparing new regulation and will be implementing new changes too.

Updates like Privacy policy, Terms of Service and Agreement of Git contributor.

Mailing lists are updated.

Data retention policy are published.

Data portability policy are published.

Breach notification policy is updated.

Security Release:

SA-CORE-2018-003: CKEditor team coordinates security release with Drupal Core to ensure CKEditor that the security was available immediately in Drupal 8.

For further integration of third-party dependencies into the world by Drupal and this kind of coordination in projects of open source becomes important and increasing.

SA-CORE-2018-004: A vulnerability was discovered after the SA-CORE-2018-002 released in March for Drupal 7 and 8 an additional security advisory released in April.

Drupal sites may compromise already if not yet updated. Security releases bit conversation about the software security nature, related issues and open source vs proprietary in the community.

DRUPALCI.YML:

The use of Drupalci.yml files in projects supported by the DrupalCI override element of testing and to customize. This testing makes the DrupalCI flexible for maintain the projects and much more powerful.

The post DRUPAL – New Features 2018 appeared first on Digital Ideas.

via Digital Ideas

#IFTTT #Digital Ideas

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allthatweb · 7 years ago

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Sixeleven @DrupalCon Nashville, a music experience

Mentre attraversiamo la città di mattina abbiamo ancora nelle orecchie i suoni delle decine di band che affollano e a volte intasano Broadway, la street music di Nashville, in ogni ora del giorno e della notte. Siamo qui per partecipare all’edizione americana del DrupalCon: per il secondo anno consecutivo Sixeleven è volata in missione negli Stati Uniti per la convention mondiale della community del CMS open source Drupal.

Arrivati di fronte all’ingresso del Music City Center siamo accolti dall’immagine di una gigantesca chitarra esplosa in tanti cristalli colorati (foto di Michael Warf). Ancora la musica protagonista, ma questa volta la “colpa” è nostra. Dobbiamo confessare, infatti, che l’aspettativa era molto alta. Già a settembre 2017, in occasione dell’edizione viennese, abbiamo avuto il piacere di vedere declinato il nostro progetto grafico su tutti i materiali di comunicazione e signage dell’evento, ma per Nashville è stato qualcosa di inevitabilmente diverso.

Lo scorso anno la Drupal Association, l’ente no-profit che si occupa della promozione del progetto open source anche tramite l’organizzazione dell’evento annuale, ci ha commissionato un lavoro stimolante e ambizioso: l’elaborazione di una brand identity dell'evento in grado di rappresentare i valori del DrupalCon e di renderlo riconoscibile, edizione dopo edizione, capace anche di raccontare il luogo. L’obiettivo era superare la frammentazione dell’immagine dell’evento e avere finalmente un logo unico e distintivo, da cui poi sarebbe derivata di volta in volta un’icona rappresentativa della città ospite, come la chitarra.

L’impatto, anche per noi che sapevamo che cosa aspettarci, è stato notevole: all’arrivo al conference center ci ha accolti la visione della vetrofania gigante che si estendeva su una vetrata mastodontica, alta più di 12 metri. L’enorme e sfavillante strumento musicale, simbolo assoluto della città della musica, che abbiamo realizzato a partire dai prismi colorati rappresentativi del nuovo branding, è diventata l’icona dell’evento proprio come avevamo sperato e immaginato quando ci lavoravamo. Il progetto di re-branding del DrupalCon è iniziato mesi fa, ma ha preso forma al 100% nella prima edizione che lo ha adottato, per l’appunto Nashville 2018.

Per chi seguiva l’hashtag #DrupalCon su Twitter in quei giorni, la foto della chitarra che si stagliava sulla grande vetrata è diventata virale. Tutti si sono voluti portare a casa l’immagine della DrupalCon Guitar.

L’appuntamento americano è molto più grande e immersivo rispetto a quello europeo, motivo per cui eravamo davvero curiosi di vedere il nostro lavoro inserito in quello scenario. Per non mollare la presa abbiamo voluto ribadire la scelta decisamente coerente anche nella nostra presenza nello stand della exhibit hall per offrire un'opportunità unica: portarsi a casa la vera DrupalCon Guitar!

L’idea è stata semplice: dopo avere concepito l’icona simbolo dell’edizione di Nashville, abbiamo pensato di brandizzare una chitarra acustica vera e propria e portarla con noi a Nashville per metterla a disposizione di chi, passando a trovarci al nostro booth, avesse avuto voglia di suonare: a Nashville non poteva mancare un po’ di musica live.

Per arricchire ulteriormente l’idea, abbiamo lanciato un contest, il #611opensounds: la chitarra sarebbe stata messa in palio tra tutti quelli che si fossero cimentati live, postando su Twitter una foto o video della propria performance con la nostra chitarra.

La partecipazione è stata eccezionale: abbiamo visto persone improvvisare ballad di Johnny Cash ed Eddie Vedder, habitué che ogni giorno facevano capolino per dedicarci una suonata, entusiasti dell’idea anche se non particolarmente dotati di talento. Al momento dell’estrazione è stato quasi commovente vedere il viso di Mauro, il vincitore, riempirsi di gioia per essere riuscito a conquistare nel giorno del suo compleanno la chitarra che aveva già puntato da giorni. Mauro è un drupalista di Buenos Aires che lavora da remoto per un’agenzia di Washington: sapere che la nostra chitarra è partita da Torino, passata da Nashville per poi finire in Argentina ci entusiasma parecchio e riflette perfettamente lo spirito con cui abbiamo immaginato l’iniziativa.

Oltre a questo lato musicale, il DrupalCon ci ha regalato diverse soddisfazioni professionali. I complimenti per il nostro lavoro di re-branding, visibile sui materiali esistenti (segnaletica, led screen, badges, program guides, stickers, t-shirts) sono arrivati da tutte le persone con cui siamo entrati in contatto. Un altro momento di orgoglio è stato senza dubbio quando durante il keynote di apertura della conferenza, il founder di Drupal Dries Buytaert ha citato Sixeleven, ringraziandoci per il lavoro che insieme alla Drupal Association abbiamo svolto per il restyle della front page di drupal.org, andato live a pochi giorni dall’inizio della conferenza.

Ora non resta che rimetterci al lavoro per la prossima edizione del DrupalCon, ma già qualcosa ha visto la luce, perché l’ultimo giorno dell’evento sono state annunciate le città, con le relative icone da noi disegnate, che ospiteranno le prossime due edizioni: Seattle 2019 e Minneapolis 2020. No, nel caso ve lo steste chiedendo: non organizzeremo una gara di pesca al walleye per quell’occasione. Anche se, a pensarci bene…

vimeo

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johanlouwers · 7 years ago

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Promote Drupal Initiative Announced at DrupalCon

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Katherine Druckman Wed, 04/11/2018 - 11:03

Drupal

Yesterday's Keynote from Drupal project founder, Dries Buytaert, kicked off the annual North American gathering of Drupalists from around the world, and also kicked off a new Drupal community initiative aimed at promoting the Drupal platform through a coordinated marketing effort using funds raised within the community.

The Drupal Association hopes to raise $100,000 to enable a global group of staff and volunteers to complete the first two phases of a four-phase plan to create consistent and reusable marketing materials to allow agencies and other Drupal promoters to communicate Drupal's benefits to organizations and potential customers quickly and effectively.

Convincing non-geeks and non-technical decision-makers of Drupal's strengths has always been a pain point, and we'll be watching with great interest as this initiative progresses.

Also among the announcements were demonstrations of how easy it could soon be to manipulate content within the Drupal back end using a drag-and-drop interface, which would provide great flexibility for site builders and content editors.

We also expect to see improvements to the Drupal site-builder experience in upcoming releases, as well as improvements to the built-in configuration management process, which eases the deployment process when developing in Drupal.

See the Nashville Playlist!

https://ift.tt/2JDTNWA via @johanlouwers . follow me also on twitter

#IFTTT #Linux Journal - The Original Magazine of the Linux Community

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kickoffme-blog · 8 years ago

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Ten Pointers for New Drupal 8 Developers

New Post has been published on http://www.kickoffme.com/ten-pointers-for-new-drupal-8-developers/

Ten Pointers for New Drupal 8 Developers

02/10/2016 – 10:46

We’ve been experimenting with Drupal 8 for a while now, but this site is the first project we’ve put into production built on it.

For folks who’ve worked with Drupal 6 or 7 previously and are just getting started using 8, here are a few tidbits worth being aware of when getting started.

1. Sooo much contrib is bundled in core now.

Those who’ve been in the Drupal community for quite a while remember the “Small Core” initiative. The idea was to strip Drupal core down to a minimalist framework, then use distributions to provide bundles of modules and configuration that would make Drupal a useful application in a particular scenario. Drupal Core itself would not be a useable product.

Small Core lost. Drupal 8 core contains major functionality that previously was provided by contrib modules, including Views, Views Datasource, Services, Entity API, Image Cache, Responsive Images, Breakpoints, Migrate, and WYSIWYG. Drupal 8 is a much more complete product out of the box then any previous version of Drupal.

A few features were removed from Drupal 8, most noticeably the blog module. It is easy to reproduce the blog functionality with the blog contrib module or even just by using the core components to add a custom content type and views to display the content. The latter approach is what we decided to do here.

When Drupal 7 was released many developers got burned by how many contrib modules weren’t ready yet. The inclusion of so many essential modules in core has significant mitigated that issue, but there are still a number of “essential” contrib modules that aren’t stable yet, notably token, pathauto, rules, and webform. There are prerelease versions of most of these modules in varying degrees of stability, and certainly trying them out, and contributing feedback, patches, and bug reports is the best way to help them get to a stable release. But sitebuilders under tight deadlines should check their requirements carefully and verify that any contrib modules they need are stable enough to use before promising complex functionality in Drupal 8 right now.

2. The authoring environment is massively improved.

The lack of a consistent author environment and authoring tools has, for years, been one of Drupal’s biggest weaknesses when compared to other CMSes like WordPress. Developers love Drupal, but authors usually prefer WordPress.

A major effort was put into Drupal 7 to improve the authoring experience (UX), which Drupal 8 builds on. The seven administration theme is responsive now. Dropbuttons have been introduced for more economical use of screen space and to prioritize primary actions. The CKEditor WYSIWYG editor is tightly integrated with core, providing a huge gain in consistency between one Drupal 8 environment and another.

Quickedit in-page editing is a whiz-bang feature of Drupal 8.

Using QuickEdit while writing about QuickEdit

Did I mention the improvements to preview? Node previews that actually preview as they will render reduce the guesswork previously required when authoring any content containing layout code or different typefaces from the admin interface.

3. Drupal 8 is a Symfony application

Drupalcon Denver is where I first heard about the plan to build Drupal 8 with Symfony components. I’m not sure whether my recollection is flawed or if I just didn’t understand what I was hearing, but the move to Symfony didn’t sound like too big a deal: just few minor changes to the plumbing, the inclusion of a Kernel and HTTPRequest and HTTPResponse classes that’d improve testablity. I recall a neighbour at one of the talks telling me it sounded like ASP to him.

The move to Symfony is a very big deal. Drupal 8 is near total rewrite of Drupal, with almost all core functionality now provided through services and dependency injection and thus overrideable. Interfaces and routing, classes and annotation, all idioms common in the Symfony world have been adopted in Drupal 8.

What is familiar to a Drupal Developer who hasn’t worked with Symfony? Well, the core business objects like nodes, blocks, taxonomy terms, and fields still exist, though they are implemented quite differently. The hook system isn’t too different either, but be warned that what you receive in an array of parameters is quite different. And the Form API, though not totally unchanged, is one place where the Symfony solution was rejected, though perhaps not outright: there is an active discussion on drupal.org right now about whether to integrate the Symfony form component into Drupal 9.

4. API Docs and Change records are your friend

The documentation team has worked incredibly hard to keep the documentation up with the changes that have occurred. Api.drupal.org has fantastic information about the classes and concepts you’ll encounter now.

One big issue is that many things have new names now. This is where the change records are essential. Something like “menu_get_object” from Drupal 6 or 7 has been replaced. Searching for a old command in the change records will often bring up the exact code snippet you need to update your code.

5. Config management

The configuration management inititiative is one of the biggest changes in Drupal 8. All configuration, whether it be a view, a content type, or the site title, can now be managed via importing and exporting yml files, either through a UI or via Drush. The Features module, which was the best method of synchronizing configuration across development and production sites in D6 and D7, is considerably less essential now

All the nitty gritty details of configuration management are beyond the scope of this introduction, but I will share a few useful tips that we learned in development.

Start your local dev site with a config export and settings file from your staging site. You need to make sure the hash salt in your settings.php and the UUIDs in your config files are in synch, otherwise you will not be able to synchronize the configuration accross sites.

Move the config directory out of sites/default/files. Not absolutely necessary, but it is becoming a best practice to move the config out of the site directory. It is an easy enough change to make and increases site security considerably.

Only commit production config to master, merge dev config in from branches. Config management does not include a method of identifying and merging changes between two different config directories or changes that were made in one branch that are absent in another: it is up to your source control system to handle that. If you start committing development config to your master branch, then expect to export changes from production before importing the dev changes, you will be in trouble! It doesn’t work like that. The better method is commit to your dev branch, then export production config to master and commit. Next merge dev into master, and finally import the merged config into production. Confusing? It is a bit, and the diagram on this Pantheon blog post doesn’t make it less so. The short version is just don’t commit anything but production config to master and you’ll usually be alright.

It isn’t always obvious what will be considered config and what is content. This has been an on-going problem for Drupal Developers to wrap their head around. For example, block placement is configuration and thus stored in yml but block content is not. It mostly makes sense once you get in there, but undeniably there is a bit of a learning curve here.

As I mentioned, the Features module is still available; it looks like it will come into play for bundles of configuration that need to be pushed live jointly but independent of an entire site’s config. Configuration management best practices are still evolving, however, so it remains to be seen exactly how wide Features for D8 adoption is or if other tools emerge.

6. Drush and the Drupal Console

Drush is still around and as essential as ever. A few key new command in Drush 8:

drush cr – Cache rebuild, the replacement for drush cc all in Drupal 7

drush cim – import config, similar to drush fra in 7

drush cex – export config, similar to drush fu in 7

drush cedit – edit the config yml in your editor. This can be really handy sometimes.

The Drupal Console is a new option for command line users. It is based on the Symfony Console and an extremely exciting new arrow to have in our quivers.

Drupal Console can do many of the things drush can, but the focus of this project is a bit difference than Drush’s. Most significantly is the effort in making Drupal Console generate pristine boilerplate code. That may not sound like much, but given the adoption of OO, PSR-4 namespaces, and autoloading, being able in a few keystrokes to generate a block plugin with all of the correct annotation, namespacing, and file placement is a huge timesaver. It also makes becoming productive in Drupal 8 much less daunting: you don’t initially need to understand all of the changes that have taken place. Instead, let Drupal Console take care of registering your new plugin so you can focus on just the logic you need to deliver. Later you can come back and learn about what the annotation means, what the parent class does, and so on.

7. Managing your build

We usually use Drush Make files to manage our builds, including contrib modules, patches, and libraries.

Traditional Drush Makefiles still work in Drupal 8. They have also introduced a makefile in .yml format.

Embracing a trend that has spread across the wider PHP work, Composer can also be used to manage your Drupal install, and already is being used by Drupal itself to manage dependencies. There is good documentation on how to use Composer to manage your install on Drupal.org, making use of the Drupal Composer/Drupal Project and Drupal’s Packagist host.

Whether this approach will take off or whether Drupallers will stick with Drush again remains to be seen.

8. The theme layer is now in twig.

Another element that comes to Drupal from Symfony, Twig has been adopted for templating.

Twig is easy to use and significantly more secure than PHPTemplate was. It also introduces a new template extension model to Drupal, which I’m quite excited about. I suspect it is going to take a while for existing Drupal themers to embrace this model, but folks who come to Drupal from Symfony or Django will be pleased to have extendable templates available to them. And there are promising signs that some contrib themes are starting to embrace it.

9. Theme debugging tools now in core.

In Drupal 8 in your services.yml file, you can enable theme debugging. Once you do you’ll see output like this:

with all the candidate templates listed. The template that was actually used is indicated with the x rather than the *.

One thing to watch for is that with theme debugging enabled some JSON calls break.

You know what is extra cool? Theme debugging was backported into Drupal 7 too. Try drush vset theme_debug true some time and you’ll similar output there.

More advanced debugging still requires the devel module. kint(var) is my favourite twig debugging snippet. The arrays are much more deeply nested than what you are used to from previous Drupals, so be sure to give php enough memory! Also, enable autoreload and disable template caching in your settings.yml file before debugging front-end code. Otherwise you need to clear cache on every page load.

10. A new approach to release management promises more rapid improvements in the future.

No longer will we have to wait five years for any significant changes in core functionality! As is explained in the release cycle overview on Drupal.org, “Starting with Drupal 8.0.0, Drupal core releases will move to a new release cycle schedule” with the intent being for minor releases to come out twice a year. Drupal 8.0 has been out since October, thus we are only about two months from the release of 8.1.0. A beta release of 8.1 will be available in less than a month!

8.1 is going to add, among other things, improvement to migration support from Drupal 7 and the migration UI. It appears BigPipe will also make it into 8.1. Will there be upgrade issues for site builders or compatibility issues for contrib modules moving from one minor release to the next? Will poorly maintained sites end up stranded on minor releases? Again, time will tell, but it is exciting to think there will be significant improvements to core available to us a couple of times a year.

Source

#Drupal

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