Problem Statement
The bigger and more ambitious projects are, the more contributors they involve—with different backgrounds and various experiences. These projects, exemplified by the provision of multisite factories, raise the question of the contributor’s experience. How can we make the contributor experience easier? From choosing the “backend” theme to managing content, our team of UX designers investigated the issue... and collaborated on a checklist of simple steps to verify before every launch.
We were asking ourselves these questions in July 2020; here are the results of our work.
Default Theme
By default and on every project, we install 2 themes:
We much prefer Gin but it’s important to test the interfaces, as the module is still in Alpha. If there are any compatibility issues, we use Claro, which is also still in beta but already quite widespread.
Customizing the Contribution Interface
- We set the primary colors of the (Gin) theme to the “user client’s colors”—colors can be changed in the admin area;
- We run the customization script, which allows for:
- We use a naming convention for field and paragraph titles;
- We systematically complete field descriptions;
- We arrange fields in the order they appear on the front-end page;
- We group the fields logically using the Field Group module;
- We check the date formats according to the site's language.
- We simplify the contribution interface with the Simplify module.
Going Further
Improving Image Handling -
We recommend properly configuring the responsive images module and ImageMagick to ensure a satisfactory mobile experience without extra steps for the users.
To go further: https://www.previousnext.com.au/blog/responsive-images-media-entities-drupal-8
Improving Media Management in wysiwyg -
Integration with the wysiwyg editor CKEDITOR since version 8.8—You can now spare some roles from the tough choice of image selection. There is now a button allowing contributors to pick an image from the Drupal media library.
To go further: https://wimleers.com/blog/media-embedding-drupal-8.8
File Replacement -
Some sites use a large number of files, documents, or images. To make the delicate process of replacing files easier, we use the Media Entity File Replace module which lets contributors easily replace their files, in case of errors or updates, without changing the file’s name or path.
To go further: https://bkosborne.com/blog/introducing-media-entity-file-replace-module
Improving permissions, roles, and access management -
The Node View Permissions module focuses on contributor ease by allowing them to easily view their content / all users’ content by content type.
Meanwhile, the Menu Admin per Menu module allows administrators to restrict access to the admin area of certain menus (or a single one) for specific user roles only.
For block management, the Block Content Permissions module enables certain user types to administer predetermined custom blocks.
The Permissions by Term module allows administrators to limit user contributions to certain taxonomy terms, including during autocomplete. This module relieves the admin from managing taxonomy terms that could get out of hand due to contributors not familiar with Drupal. The Vocabulary Permissions Per Role module lets you restrict contributions to certain vocabularies by role (another practical way to control contributions).
Managing Paragraphs -
Whether nested or not, multiple paragraphs can confuse a content contributor to a page. By installing the Jquery Sortable library, backend-only, you can use the native collapsing feature for paragraphs, even when nested.
The back office is looking great #drupal with the #Gin theme #GinFutureUI https://t.co/EYRJlx2Dp3
— Ryad Karar (@ryadkarar) August 19, 2020
Go check out the presentation of the Gin theme at DrupalCon Europe 2020: https://app.pitch.com/app/public/presentation/49fc72e4-d42d-42ab-97a2-3061ad2fd37b
