Sessions

Drupal in the Cloud

mfer — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:40:49 +0000

Time slot:

10 March 15:45 - 16:45

Room:

Chicago 8 & 9

Track:

Implementation and Config

Experience:

Intermediate

What do cloud services offer Drupal developers today? See Drupal cloud technology from Acquia, Pantheon, and Microsoft up close and behind the scenes. We'll put these tools in the hot-seat to see if they are ready for prime time and how they compare to traditional hosting and to each-other. We will also do a deep dive into the stacks to see how they were built to scale.

Video on archive.org.

Intended audience:

The intended audience is those interested in cloud development and infrastructure services for Drupal.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What cloud servers are available in the Drupal marketplace today?

Question 2:

How do they compare to traditional hosting services?

Question 3:

Who uses them?

Question 4:

How are they architected to scale?

Question 5:

How do they compare to each other?

Speakers:

Jim Salem

Speakers:

Josh Koenig

Speakers:

Robert Collazo

Speakers:

Pierre Couzy

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Distribution Deli

wylbur — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:24:36 +0000

Time slot:

9 March 17:00 - 18:00

Room:

Sheraton 4 & 5

Track:

Implementation and Config

Experience:

Beginner

How do you harness the flexibility of Drupal without sacrificing ease of use and user appeal? How do you tap into the Drupal expertise from other users in your industry? A Drupal Distribution may be the answer for you! In this session, you will learn about four different Drupal distributions. Each has a different focus, but they all aim to make Drupal easier to understand, use, and support. Attend this session to learn about how Distributions work, and how one of them might work for you.

Part of our session will include 4 lightning talks featuring published Drupal Distributions:

Drupal Commons
Drupal Commons is a pre-assembled Drupal distribution you can use to build a community site. Whether for internal collaboration or for an open community, Drupal Commons lets you build a site that integrates Commons-style functions with your own unique needs.

NodeStream
Drupal is a powerful tool for online publishers and NodeStream is a packaged Drupal distribution built for that audience. NodeStream makes it easy to get started with a newspaper or magazine site on a flexible platform leveraging the power of Drupal and its community built tools. NodeStream's focus is on the editorial workflow and social integration with readers of the site.

Civic
Civic is a distribution of Drupal, originally built for electoral campaigns and legislative offices with websites run by part-time webmasters and volunteer graphic designers. Civic aims to give people a website that is easy to manage and redesign without any prior knowledge of websites or Drupal.

OpenScholar
OpenScholar is designed as a tool for building academic web sites, such as a scholar's personal site or an academic project site. OpenScholar tools and features foster online collaboration and provide relevant site sections, such as "Publications", "Events", "Blog", "Classes" and much more.

Video available at Archive.org

Intended audience:

Those interested in distributions.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What are Drupal distributions?

Question 2:

How is a distribution different from using Drupal core and modules?

Question 3:

How do distributions make it easier to learn and use Drupal?

Question 4:

Will using a distribution give me all the power of Drupal?

Question 5:

How do I find out more about available Drupal Distributions?

Speakers:

Ferdinand Alimadhi

Speakers:

Dick Olsson

Speakers:

Bryan Hirsch

Speakers:

Wilbur Ince

Speakers:

Jay Batson

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Project Management As an Art Form

gdemet — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:56:13 +0000

Time slot:

9 March 13:00 - 14:00

Room:

Chicago 8 & 9

Track:

Business and Strategy

Experience:

Intermediate

Do you dream about getting the big six- or seven-figure projects, and lots of them? If you aren’t ready with the project management skills it takes to balance 3, 4, 5, or more enterprise-level projects—and all the decisions, personalities, and surprises those entail—your dream could become your worst nightmare.

Building a site today is not simply “building a site.” Websites today are at the core of many organizations, and a project's success or failure can impact reputations, careers, and more. You may know where you are going…but do you know what you’ll do when you get there?

This panel discussion will pull back the curtain and give you in-the-trenches insights into what it takes to succeed at that level you strive for—or may have suddenly found yourself at. Hear from current PMs working at the enterprise level as they discuss their different management styles, decision making processes, people management techniques, project planning approaches, most effective tools, and challenges specific to managing large-scale Drupal projects.

Video at archive.org.

Intended audience:

This panel is targeted at those with existing Web project management experience looking for something that goes beyond the basics.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How does PM involvement impact the various phases of a project and the organization... and should it?

Question 2:

How do you say "No" to the wrong type of work and still keep a positive client relationship?

Question 3:

How do you partner with clients to ensure the project needs are met?

Question 4:

Are there differences in managing Drupal projects versus other technology projects?

Question 5:

What are some shared tools to help navigate the questions being answered in this session?

Speakers:

Nicole Lind

Speakers:

Joel Sackett

Speakers:

Amy O'Malley

Speakers:

George DeMet

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Community benefits of the Drupal.org redesign

lisarex — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:03:13 +0000

Time slot:

9 March 17:00 - 18:00

Room:

Sheraton 1

Track:

Drupal Community

Experience:

Beginner

In October 2010, the Drupal.org redesign launched. This was the culmination of a multi-year process, and a major milestone for the Drupal community.

Kieran (amazon), Neil (drumm), Chris (chrisstrahl) and Lisa (lisarex) will discuss the ways the Drupal.org redesign has benefited the Drupal community in the short and near future. We’ll also discuss about how the redesign has increased revenue for the Drupal Association as a way to sustain maintenance and development for the *.drupal.org infrastructure, about upcoming features to Drupal.org, and how community volunteers can help the redesign.

If you’re interested in the technical aspects of the drupal.org redesign, see also the session on Under the hood of Drupal.org.

Intended audience:

Anyone with an interest in the Drupal community, SEO, organizing launches of major sites, and contributing to the future of Drupal.org.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What were some of the goals and guiding principles of the Drupal.org redesign?

Question 2:

How has the Drupal.org redesign positively benefited the Drupal community?

Question 3:

What planned features and changes didn’t make it into the initial launch?

Question 4:

Why weren’t they and when will they be ready?

Question 5:

How can I help make Drupal.org better?

Speakers:

Kieran Lal

Speakers:

Lisa Rex

Speakers:

Neil Drumm

Speakers:

Chris Strahl

I have read the Speaker FAQ

DrupalCamp, How to and Q & A

blakehall — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:01:52 +0000

Track:

Drupal Community

Experience:

Beginner

Curious what it takes to run a DrupalCamp? DrupalCamp organizers from the U.S, Europe and around are gathering to discuss what it takes to run a DrupalCamp as well as tips, tricks and best practices. We'll cover topics such as costs, venue choices, and how to find your audience. You'll leave this session with the knowledge and tools to hold a successful DrupalCamp.

Intended audience:

Individuals interested in hosting a DrupalCamp

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How much work is organizing a Drupal Camp?

Question 2:

What does it take to ensure the camp is successful?

Question 3:

How much money would it take to run a camp?

Question 4:

How do I find folks to help with the organization?

Question 5:

How big can my camp be?

Speakers:

blakehall

Speakers:

Greg Knaddison

Speakers:

Gregory Heller

Speakers:

anneaconda

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Storytelling for a better User Experience

Kayla Wren — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:01:52 +0000

Track:

Design and UX

Experience:

Beginner

Throughout history, people have used stories to share ideas and information. Learn how stories can be used to gather user requirements, communicate complex functionality, encourage innovation, and create a sense of understanding between developers, designers, managers and clients. This very simple and conversation-centered technique not only improves the quality of team & client interactions, but it also keeps the user at the center of your design process.

Intended audience:

Researchers, managers, analysts, project managers, UX designers, architects, and developers

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What are user stories and why do they work?

Question 2:

How user stories are generated, themed and prioritized?

Question 3:

How do I translate user stories into technical requirements?

Question 4:

What are some techniques we can put to use in our practice?

Question 5:

What is the most effective way to facilitate user story workshops with clients and end users?

Speakers:

Kayla Wren

I have read the Speaker FAQ

How to use strategic roadmaps in web projects

Erik Petersen — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:00:24 +0000

Track:

Business and Strategy

Experience:

Beginner

What defines a successful web project? Our definition is when it delivers business value. This session explains how a well thought out strategy and concept can guide design and technology into delivering true business value.

Speakers are Erik Petersen and Mattias Axelsson from the Swedish web agency Happiness, educated at Stockholm University and with over 13 years of experience in digital media.

We will share our knowledge on how to use strategy as a powerful roadmap in digital projects. This roadmap guides both designers and technical developers to better contribute to the success of a web project.

Topics we will talk about include

Strategic process
Creating a concept from strategy
Strategic mindset in design and technical development in Drupal
How to measure success

Intended audience:

Management at the client side, client service managers, aspiring digital strategists, designers and programmers with interest in contributing to business value

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What is strategy?

Question 2:

Why is strategy important?

Question 3:

How can a designer relate to strategy?

Question 4:

How can a programmer relate to strategy?

Question 5:

How do we measure success?

Speakers:

Erik Petersen

Speakers:

Mattias Axelsson

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Become an IA superstar: building essential navigation in Drupal

JohnAlbin — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:59:51 +0000

Time slot:

10 March 14:15 - 15:15

Room:

Sheraton 1

Track:

Implementation and Config

Experience:

Beginner

Learn how to slice, sort, expand, and tweak Drupal’s menus in flexible ways to build a usable Information Architecture for your website.

Drupal 7 comes with a fantastic menu system. Unfortunately, the ways that core presents that navigation is limited to breadcrumbs and full “trees” displayed in blocks. Additionally, Drupal presents unique challenges to site builders who don’t want their users to go off the rails and get lost (the “disappearing menu” problem.)

With the rise of new widespread IA patterns like mega menus and new challenges like the lack of hovering on touch screen mobile devices, Drupal must adapt or die.

In this session we’ll explore several contrib modules that extend Drupal’s menu system to provide solutions to all these IA issues, including Menu block, Menu position, Menu item container, and Mega menu, many of which are used on the Drupalcon Chicago site.

Intended audience:

Site builders working on any medium or large website. And people looking to engage, laugh and share during the presentation and discussion.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How do I display the primary links at the top and the child links in the sidebar? And why can't Drupal core do that?

Question 2:

How can I build a mega menu even cooler than the one on the Drupalcon site? How can I keep it accessible?

Question 3:

How can I fix Drupal’s disappearing navigation problem? I want all my blog posts to look like they are underneath “Blogs” in the menu! #%?&!!!

Question 4:

How do I create drop-down menus for hover-less touch-based mobile devices, like the iPad?

Question 5:

How can I get editorial control over the placement of menu items in column-based navigation blocks?

Speakers:

John Albin Wilkins

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Drupal from the Trenches - becoming a better developer

Zahor — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:59:34 +0000

Track:

Implementation and Config

Experience:

Beginner

This session aims to equip new developers with an arsenal of tools and ideas to get themselves out of problems they will inevitably get into

Intended audience:

Beginners and possibly intermediate developers.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How to debug WSODs

Question 2:

How to find common database issues

Question 3:

How to debug not so common database issues

Question 4:

How to solve upgrade issues

Question 5:

Breaking Down A Drupal Module (For Begginers!)

criticalpatch — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:58:19 +0000

Track:

Coder

Experience:

Beginner

In this presentation I will dissect a moderately complex Drupal module from beginning to end. I will discuss not only what hooks and functions are used but also the design considerations behind them. I will also talk about basic through intermediate functions and hooks that you are almost necessarily going to need for building modules, as well as a few that will just make your life easier!

If this sounds like you, you might be interested in my presentation!

You want to know which hooks to use in certain situations.
You have written a few simple modules, but are looking to take it to the next level.
You want to your code to work harmoniously with Drupal by conforming to standards.

About the Presenter
Jonathan has been a developer for Evolving Web in Montreal for the last year. During this time he has worked on several large projects and developed many useful modules.

Intended audience:

People with some development experience who are new to Drupal module development. This could include developers who have worked on other frameworks, Drupal themers who want to learn a bit more about how their sites work, or project managers who know their way around a database.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How do I think about architecting a Drupal Module?

Question 2:

How does the Drupal Hook system work?

Question 3:

How do you implement a hook_menu?

Question 4:

How are some useful Drupal database tables structured?

Question 5:

Where should I look in core to figure out best practices for my development concerns?

Speakers:

Jonathan Pullano

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Managing your servers with Chef

tjwallace — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:58:14 +0000

Track:

Coder

Experience:

Advanced

As web site developers, you will find yourself managing more and more web-severs as time goes on. Eventually managing one server at a time becomes tedious and leaves room for error. Open-source configuration management tools that will allow you to configure your server programmatically and help keep your sysadmin (and support) time to a minimal.

Agenda:

When should you consider using an configuration management tool?
An overview of how they work
Chef overview including setup and configuration
Sample configurations relevant to “drupalists”
Chef demo

This will build on the talk I gave at DrupalCamp Montreal - http://www.drupalcampmontreal.com/sessions/configuration-management-chef

Intended audience:

Advanced Drupal consultants who manage multiple servers. Multi-webserver Drupal installs.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What is configuration management and why do you need it? What are the options out there?

Question 2:

How is chef architected? Which parts do you need to use and when?

Question 3:

How to setup a Chef server for yourself.

Question 4:

How to write chef recipes. How to apply then to servers in your infrastructure.

Question 5:

How to use advanced Chef features such as attribute indexing and searching.

Speakers:

Jeff Wallace

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Panel: Recruiting, growing, and keeping Drupal developers

Shannon Lucas — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:57:55 +0000

Track:

Business and Strategy

Experience:

Beginner

The demand for Drupal knowledge is higher than it has ever been, and there's a shortage of Drupal talent. While this seems like an ideal situation for current Drupal developers, it presents a challenge for businesses that are wanting to either implement a new Drupal solution or maintain an existing one.

This panel will share the experiences of both Drupal developers and the business leads of Drupal shops.

Intended audience:

This panel is intended for technical leads, managers, and recruiters who are tasked with building a team of Drupal talent.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What are some of the things that attract Drupal developers' attention?

Question 2:

What are some of the things that motivate Drupal developers?

Question 3:

How do you grow a developer into a Drupal developer?

Question 4:

How do you keep your Drupal people?

Question 5:

What turns off Drupal developers?

Speakers:

Shannon Lucas

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Taming Cerberus: Advanced Views Theming Using Templates, CSS, and Drupal's UI

glass.dimly — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:57:29 +0000

Track:

Theming

Experience:

Beginner

The Views module, a complex and beautiful query builder, is at the heart of any customized Drupal installation. Views exposes much of its functionality to the site-builder through the Drupal UI, but its true potential and flexibility is uncovered using Views template files, which have a modular have a field-level specificity.

Most site-builders can add a views field and perhaps modify the output somewhat. But what about those times when you've got a really great-looking PDF from a designer and you just can't figure out how to make Views obey?

My friends, when that happens, you are caught in Drupal Hell. You must escape past the three-headed guard-dog, Cerberus, whose heads are Templates, CSS, and the Drupal UI. Only then can you bribe Charon to take you over the Styx.

Our primary example will be the construction of a Views-based slider that rotates through Views fields. Through this lens and the lens of several other common tasks, we will move from the construction of this View in the Drupal UI, moving into templating and other advanced Views techniques, and we will end with using hook_alter for tasks like Views SQL rewrites. We will take a practical, problems-based approach.

Intended audience:

Beginning to Intermediate Themers and Sitebuilders

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

When is it necessary to modify view's HTML markup through templates?

Question 2:

When can Views be modified through the Drupal interface?

Question 3:

What are the common tasks that site-builders face, and what sort of tricks can be employed to get the output you need?

Question 4:

How can I build a killer slider?

Question 5:

What level of specificity should you employ in your templates in order to target Views fields with the type of CSS you need to apply?

Speakers:

Jeremiah John

Speakers:

Jenn Schlick

I have read the Speaker FAQ

hands on Adobe Air (we'll leave the brain for Drupal)

gavri — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:57:10 +0000

Track:

Implementation and Config

Experience:

Intermediate

You must have heard about tweetdeck - a tweeter client based on Adobe air.
Using Drupal as a back-end you can build your own desktop rich internet application.

Intended audience:

Developers and designers who want to expand their web experience to the desktop and mobile environments

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How can I use Drupal services to build and air app?

Question 2:

Ok i build a desktop app - what do i need to do to go mobile?

Question 3:

Can I use my jqeury experience to build a desktop app?

Question 4:

what kind of desktop applications can I build using air?

Question 5:

What are the drawbacks of the plaform?

Speakers:

Gabriel Guy

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Monitoring your Drupal server and site

jonvk — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:57:05 +0000

Track:

Coder

Experience:

Intermediate

This talk will be split between monitoring a Drupal server and managing the deployment of such Drupal servers.
In the monitoring part I will cover:
A brief intro on what monitoring is and why anyone would want to use it.
In particular, I will present how to setup Icinga, which is a fork of Nagios with a slicker interface. I will cover using the Drupal Nagios module, but mostly be about monitoring the health of the server itself. It will therefore be more focused around system admin tasks.

Where to find Nagios plugins.
How to write one when it does not exist yet.
Automated responses to problems.
Nagios extensions for logging and graphing.
Securely monitoring remote servers.

Intended audience:

Intermediate sys-admins

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What is monitoring?

Question 2:

Why did we choose Nagios?

Question 3:

What can Nagios do?

Question 4:

How does Nagios work?

Question 5:

How does Nagios integrate with Drupal?

Speakers:

Jonathan Villemaire-Krajden

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Theming From Scratch

zachattack — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:56:53 +0000

Track:

Theming

Experience:

Beginner

This session is designed to explain some basic to intermediate concepts about theming to non-developer types. Much of the information revolves around demoing these concepts using a short tutorial and building a basic theme from scratch.

It assumes that you know:

HTML
CSS
HOW TO COPY AND PASTE PHP

We simply build a theme that is our own from the ground up and leverage information that can be found in Drupal’s API as well as tips and tricks that have helped me understand how to theme in Drupal.

Intended audience:

Beginning Drupal themers or Designers wanting to get a leg up quickly and understand a lot of basic concepts to move their designs to Drupal without feeling the jargon or technological burden that is involved.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

Is it easy to make a theme from scratch?

Question 2:

Do I have to sub-theme to theme?

Question 3:

What are the bare minimum things I need to include to get a theme working?

Question 4:

How much PHP do I need to know?

Question 5:

How do I control the order of fields coming out of CCK?

Speakers:

Zach Meyer

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Drush IRC

Slurpee — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:55:58 +0000

Track:

Drupal Community

Experience:

Intermediate

Not everyone who uses Drupal to build websites has experience or comfort with command line to utilize the awesomeness of Drush. Relying on FTP to add modules and themes wastes time and money that could be devoted to more useful tasks, and also means missing out on all the other Drush tools that make Drupal site-building so much easier. Drush IRC inserts an IRC UI for Drush, making Drush commands available to any users comfortable with IRC. We have also addressed issues related to security and access.

Similar to Drush, Drush IRC is not a Drupal module, and is independent of Drupal versions. It is a set of scripts that allow users to execute Drush commands from IRC. On some system configurations, Drush can result in problematic file ownership issues. We wrote a small "Drush Command" to eliminate this issue.

DrupalCon Chicago will be the first place Drush IRC is publicly discussed. We are hoping the community has ideas on how to improve and extend Drush IRC. Please vote and attend to let us know your ideas. If our presentation is selected, we will dedicate time to contributing Drush IRC back to the community in time for DrupalCon Chicago.

Drush IRC System Requirements:

Eggdrop IRC bot
Drush installation accessible by the bot
Drupal site accessible by Drush

Example Usage:

Slurpee: !drush phamilydev.net dl views

Phamily-Bot: Result of command /usr/local/bin/drushhack -y -r /var/www/sites/phamilydev.net/htdocs dl views executed on dev
Project views (6.x-2.11) downloaded to /var/www/sites/phamilydev.net/htdocs/sites/all/modules/views. [success]

Slurpee: !drush phamilydev.net en views

Phamily-Bot: Result of command /usr/local/bin/drushhack -y -r /var/www/sites/phamilydev.net/htdocs en views executed on dev
The following projects will be enabled: views
Do you really want to continue? (y/n): y
views was enabled successfully. [ok]

Intended audience:

Groups collaborating on a Drupal project. IRC users who also utilize Drush. Virtual companies which use IRC as their office. Developers who aren't allowed to have SSH access. System administrators who don't want to allow SSH access to developers. Developers, site builders, and themers who want to learn command line in a safe environment. Users with little or no command line experience, but want to try Drush.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What is Drush IRC?

Question 2:

Why use Drush IRC?

Question 3:

How to use Drush IRC?

Question 4:

How to configure Drush IRC?

Question 5:

How to add security levels to Drush IRC?

Speakers:

Matthew Lechleider

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Millennium 2.0 Integration: A Public Library Case Study

Slurpee — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:54:58 +0000

Track:

Implementation and Config

Experience:

Beginner

SUMMARY:

Real-world story of a public library fully adopting Drupal. With no previous CMS, legacy content and card catalog are migrated to Drupal and Millennium 2.0. Presentation covers everything from initial requirements, to design/theming, and finally focusing on the Millennium 2.0 Drupal module integration with an existing OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog).

Presentation will walk through various stages of the project, including our research into other OPAC solutions and ultimately why we chose to use Millennium 2.0 Drupal module. Learn about our assumptions, mistakes, and how to save yourself time.

CASE STUDY DETAILS:
http://drupal.org/project/millennium

The Waukegan Public Library (WPL), 40 miles north of Chicago, was looking for an affordable CMS to upgrade their web site, making it more engaging for users and easier to maintain. WPL staff chose Drupal, but had no idea how to move forward. We assessed Waukegan's needs to build an entire project with Drupal fulfilling every requirement. On November 11th, 2010, in the middle of our research and testing of various OPAC tools and modules currently available, the Millennium 2.0 OPAC Integration module was released. It fit WPL's needs exactly. We were just completing initial theming, and had the luxury of jumping directly into Millennium 2.0.

Project is scheduled to launch in the first week of January 2011, so it will be live well before DrupalCon Chicago, and ready to show off the power of Millennium 2.0 as well as any challenges and pitfalls encountered in implementation and theming.

Intended audience:

Library staff members. Libraries running Drupal. Libraries looking into adapting Drupal. Developers working on library projects. Anyone researching OPAC and/or Millennium integration. Session assumes a basic familiarity with Drupal site-building and theming but focuses on the Millennium 2.0 module so that even those with an interest in library OPAC integration but without hands-on Drupal site-building experience will benefit.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

What is an OPAC and what is Millennium?

Question 2:

Why use Millennium 2.0?

Question 3:

How to integrate Millennium 2.0?

Question 4:

How can Millennium 2.0 benefit your project?

Question 5:

Can my library use Millennium 2.0?

Speakers:

Matthew Lechleider

Speakers:

Steve Maxey

I have read the Speaker FAQ

User-Centered Development

Shannon Lucas — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:54:34 +0000

Track:

Design and UX

Experience:

Intermediate

When we learn to program, we write small functions or simple programs that don't do much. In the real world, we make software used by ordinary people and maintained and extended by other developers. How do you integrate the user into your coding plan? A few companies have the resources to support dedicated user experience staff, but this is not the norm -- the task of making usable software often falls on the developer.

This high-level session will teach developers how to include user experience in their process. We'll talk about developing usable software for end users as well as developing usable code for other developers.

Intended audience:

This session is intended for developers who may be creating user interfaces or creating code interfaces for other developers.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

How does how we are taught to program conflict with making usable software?

Question 2:

What changes are needed in the developer's thought process to develop usable software?

Question 3:

How do you adapt your project estimation to include UX work?

Question 4:

What is usable code?

Question 5:

How do I make my code more usable to other developers?

Speakers:

Shannon Lucas

I have read the Speaker FAQ

Drupal Usability for Developers: How to Get Real People to Love Your Work

David_Rothstein — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:53:37 +0000

Time slot:

10 March 13:00 - 14:00

Room:

Sheraton 2 & 3

Track:

Coder

Experience:

Intermediate

Do you want the code you write to have an amazing user interface, one that allows site administrators to actually appreciate your module's awesome under-the-hood functionality, rather than (a) clicking around in vain before giving up and running away, or (b) constantly asking you for help? Fortunately, you're not alone. The Drupal community has put a lot of effort into usability improvements in Drupal 7 core, and even bigger improvements are happening in the Drupal 7 contrib space and will happen in Drupal 8. This session will introduce you to usability-related APIs and other resources that are at your disposal, and give concrete examples of how to improve your module's user experience with minimum coding effort. By leveraging the community's work on usability, you'll save time, save code, and be part of an important movement to provide a clear, consistent administrative experience within and across Drupal websites.

Video at archive.org.

Intended audience:

Developers who are interested in improving the user experience of the modules they write. Some minimal knowledge of Drupal coding will be assumed, but previous experience with Drupal 7 is not required.

Questions answered by this session

Question 1:

Why should I care about user experience when writing Drupal code?

Question 2:

As a developer, how can I effectively communicate with user experience experts inside and outside the Drupal community?

Question 3:

What are some of the APIs I can use to improve the user experience of my module and make it consistent with other user interfaces throughout Drupal?

Question 4:

What are some of the usability-related trends being explored in Drupal 7 contributed modules?

Question 5:

What resources exist for Drupal module developers to learn more about best practices in usability?

Speakers:

David Rothstein

Speakers:

Gábor Hojtsy

I have read the Speaker FAQ