On Aug 9, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Dries Buytaert wrote:
Thanks for doing this work, Kieran! It's important. I do have some questions though:
On 09 Aug 2006, at 04:54, Kieran Lal wrote:
Non-technical user developing community or social change web site forced to become "accidental technologist"
Does it matter what the user is developing? Maybe the following is sufficient:
Non-technical user forced to become "accidental technologist"
Yes it matters a lot. If you want to build an online community or social change website you are going to end up being recommended to use Drupal. Drupal's community knowledge extends beyond just CMS development but is now a expert community in online community building and social change websites. This is important to know because this growing user base has certain expectations and goals. This was clear from the interviews, maybe 4+/10 people fell into this category. We need to get a sense of how many Drupal sites are falling into this domain.
Inexperienced with Drupal but curious. Learning fast based on other web site building experience
Does it matter whether I'm learning fast?
Yes. Many people who are using Drupal are leaving alternatives and learning the Drupal way. They are website developer converts and we need to recognize the speed at which they understand Drupal.
What if I'm an inexperienced user learning slowly?
Then you would be a new user! I'll try to clariify.
Learnable website that can be taught to users and allows website developers to leverage existing learning when building new sites
I don't understand what this means.
Ok, I'll re-write it. Clustering answers is hard, and it's good to know what's not working. The feedback from professional site builders was that there customers can learn how to use Drupal quickly. Also, professionals will just keep building in Drupal no matter what rather than switch from WordPress, to Joomla, to home grown CMS. Drupal's learning curve has a high rate of return for Drupal consultants!
Module configuration, extensibility with new modules, and clean code make it easier to configure the website as you need it
Clean code does not affect Drupal's configurability. Maybe this needs to be rephrased?
Yes, clean code greatly impact configurability! To administrators the ability to patch clean core code is an important option, when they can't accomplish this in the theme layer or through the administration interface. You might see this differently, but to customers and administrators it's configuration, even if it's code. Note: they couldn't/wouldn't do this do other CMS code bases because the code is unclean!
Why do you use Drupal?
What is the difference with the previous question (eg. How does Drupal help you accomplish your goals as a web site administrator?)? Looks like both questions have sometimes similar answers.
True the answer do overlap significantly. But the second question speaks more to personal choice (I like the community) rather than effectiveness in accomplishing goals. I'll revisit the summarize answers to see if it's worthy to maintain this distinction.
How does Drupal help your users? (select all that apply) Gives them the features they want quickly Allows users to create web based content such as forum posts, or blogs Drupal community innovates and provides community building capacity with Drupal
I don't understand how this answers above question. Whether the Drupal community innovates shouldn't be of concern to users of, say, twit.tv.
Many communities are limited by the commercial constraints of their community tools. For example, yahoo groups feature set hasn't changed much in 5 years. Users know that with Drupal they get more features faster to better meet their needs. For commercial communities like Twit this doesn't make much of a difference. But for more grassroots communities we are seeing a tipping point. "Go with Drupal they have the best and newest community stuff! "
Cost effective and winning over non-technical decision makers
Cost effective for the user, or for the administrator?
Free tends towards cost effective for both :-)
Why do user have to think of 'costs'?
If you are currently paying $20/month for commercial service like meet-up.com then your users and administrators know they have to raise money to pay for the service every month.
Looks like some answers target users, while other answers target administrators.
Agreed, this is confusing. I'll clarify.
What are some common Drupal administration tasks? (select all that apply) Monitor site through reviewing logs, looking at user activity Manage spam through comments, track backs, forum, and user registration Configure modules Update modules, install modules, test patches, track fixes for modules Work on themes and add theme template to customize module output Learn about Drupal capabilities and features, understand terminology, and plan improvements Manage users accounts, change permissions Respond to user feedback during testing and make changes Create web pages through the creating content types Other_______________
Some of the answers use technical language which not everyone might be familiar with (eg. trackback, patches, theme template).
Ok, I try to preserve the language that the administrators use in the interviews. I'll see what I can do.
What are some infrequent Drupal tasks?
I would rephrase this question so it is similar to the question above, to highlight the difference:
What are the MOST common Drupal administration tasks? What are the LEAST common Drupal administration tasks?
Ok.
Would it make sense to merge the answers of both questions? Two questions, with the same answers.
I merged the questions for Easiest and Hardest in the last survey and used a likert scale. The response rate fell off significantly. I am recommending we go with two shorter questions and hope the response rates stay high.
1-5 Upgrade modules manually, manage module conflicts in output, download modules that don't include dependencies
What do you mean with "conflicts in output"?
For example(not a real example): categories module and freetagging module might overlap in the tags/terms they output. The result is the administrator must change, usually the output of the contributed module. Core tends to be clean, contributed modules tend to conflict.
What do you mean with "modules that don't include dependencies"?
Example: If you want sign-up module: you download a tarball. But the tarball doesn't contain the dependent event module. If you build sites professionally, the need to get each dependency is expensive.
1-5 Manage content specifically creating new content types, viewing differences in node versions, importing content, or seeing multiple previews of content on a single page
What do you mean with "multiple previews"?
Steven Peck just corrected this on Drupal.org. You are forced to preview. That preview has two actual previews. The first preview is the first part of the node. The second preview is the whole node. If you make it through that, then you get to the submit button.
1-5 Configure user permissions with existing granularity
What do mean with "existing" here? Without adding a new module?
this is wrong. It should read increasing granularity. People like Drupal's permissions, but want more.
What other important tasks did not fit into the categories above for you?
Why do we make this a separate question? Why not add it to the answers to the previous question?
Most common, Least common, Easy, Hard. That's a good cross section. But important gives the respondent an opportunity to talk about issues we didn't address. For example in the ten interviews no one talked about internationalization or about cross browser support. Just because the responses were listed above doesn't mean that they user would select to put any of those responses in those 4 categories. This is a challenge in this type of survey that what hard for some is easy for others. I'll take advice.
(select all that apply) Analyzing logs to understand the state of your site
Wasn't this part of the previous answers? If so, then it would have fitted in the categories, not?
Maybe. For some yes, for other no.
Integrating modules and resolving clashes in the output
What do you mean with "clashes in the output"?
See the categories example above.
Work on the theme and templates to create structure and distinct looks to sections of the site
Wasn't this part of the previous answers? If so, then it would have fitted in the categories, not?
It didn't come out in the interviews this way. I'll make adjustments to the available responses and do a couple more interviews to see if the duplicate responses are causing confusion. It's worth noting that I anticipate it will take 20-40 hours to analyze the results and get something meaningful to be presented to the Drupal community. I am looking for volunteers to help in this Analysis. Thanks for the responses! Cheers, Kieran
-- Dries Buytaert :: http://www.buytaert.net/