Drupal Open Source - Research Paper Example

?OVERVIEW Drupal is an open source software package that enables users to easily organize, manage and publish their content, with an endless variety of customization. Drupal has several areas with identifiable opportunities for improvements. Among others these areas are: 1. Obscure terminologies 2. Lack of an easy visually way to insert on the page. 3. Lack of realistic previews which makes building a site in Drupal very challenging. 4. Limited functionality. 5. Inability of users to make connection between module’s version number and modules listed on Drupal.org A lot of emphasize will be put in this areas to try and eliminate the areas above to make the use of Drupal easy with improved functionality meanwhile increasing its efficiency. REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS ROOT concept Component Contribution to the root concept High-level vision An Application where developers are able easily organize, manage and publish their content, with an endless variety of customization. Basic Rationale Availability of Apache Solr integration module. The taxonomy concepts are easily hooked onto Apache Solr for filtering based on meta-information, such as tags, authors, publications, etc. in Drupal, an author can be part of a taxonomy and user profiles can be made for these authors - by default ability to write Themes using PHP Template, instead of depending upon Typo script Ability to handle a large quantity (over 1000) of diverse sites Central management tools Integration with Active Directory Stakeholder group In general, man, woman, students, working people. Computer programmers Starting assumption Improvements and re-designing will be done from the existing versions to a more stable and user friendly application. Field Study Guides extracted from the users e-mail forums 1. How many people use Drupal? Why? 2. How many sites have been created using Drupal? 3. How often is Drupal used? 4. Which difficulties are encounter during the usage 5. What do users like most about Drupal? 6. Is Drupal a viable solution for user’s website? Does it have any limited functionality? 7. Do users encounter problems when Installing Drupal? Which are they? 8. What are the most important features Drupal has? 9. Is there anything that users do not like about Drupal? If so, what are they? 10. Under what conditions users don’t like Drupal and why? Examples. 11. What are the additional features Drupal does not have but users consider important and can improve the situations? Field data collection(answers to the Field Study Guides extracted from the users e-mail forums) 1. What is the function of Drupal and why do users chose to use Drupal? Drupal is used to create websites. It is used because: Advanced URL Control, Custom Content Types and Views, Revision Control, User Management, Excellent Documentation, Large and Friendly Community 2. How many sites have been created using Drupal? Drupal has been used to create several very important website which include; The United, Nations, Warner Brothers Records, The Discovery Channel, Forbes, The Grateful Dead, AOL, Yahoo, Lime.com, The New York Observer, The Onion, Aaron Wall's SEObook.com 3. How often is Drupal used? Drupal is used often in creation of website. 4. Which difficulties are encounter during the usage? There are several problems that are encountered as during the use of Drupal application. They include, obscure terminologies, lack of realistic previews, limited functionalities. Among others What do users like most about Drupal? Because of: well interaction of plug-in with its core, it is secure, Drupal can do blogging 5. Is Drupal a viable solution for user’s website? Does it have any limited functionality? Yes, although it has some limited functionality 6. Do users encounter problems when Installing Drupal? Which are they? Yes, uninstalling modules fails; whenever a user attempt to install Drupal he get this "Table variable already exists" 7. What are the most important features Drupal has? Flexibility, Good Governance, Contributed Code, Large Vendor Pool, Scalability 8. Is there anything that users do not like about Drupal? If so, what are they? It doesn’t promote a degree of programmer creativity, not designed with a specific end goal in mind 9. What are the additional features Drupal does not have but users consider important and can improve the situations? DATA SUMMARIES Stakeholders Characteristics Site builders Content editors Programmers Background: computer literacy including web designing. Many are familiar with web design using Drupal and have at least used it.  Expectations: Quality application which has full functionality to replace other applications like wordpress and joomla.    Preferences: they would prefer an application that functions well and has all functionalities. Theoretical purity CSS designers HTML designers Background: have high level knowledge in website designs and graphics design and creation of a website is their daily routine. They use Drupal in their activities. Expectations: have vast knowledge in the functionalities of Drupal Preferences: High functionality application with easy to use interface to produce high quality end products. Educationists Background: most Educationists need Drupal to deliver knowledge to their students. Hence Drupal becomes an important tool to pass on content to learner.    Expectations: An Educationist needs certain features of Drupal to help him under particular situations. He wants to pass the knowledge smoothly without straining himself or the students. Preferences: They would prefer an easy to use application that has all the functionalities they require to teach. Hypothetical stake holders Actors Description Everest Stone Everest is a website developer who creates and maintains websites routinely. He needs an application that will be easier to navigate through while at the same time producing high quality end products. Boniface Write Boniface is a computer programmer who specializes in creating website applications. He needs, among his tools an application to help him carry out his work with ease. PROBLEM SCENARIOS Site builders Problem Scenarios Problem Scenarios 1 Everest is a site builder who carries out website design routinely. He uses Drupal to create his sites. He is contracted to create a website with a certain institution. With great functionalities. Since he is a Drupal user, He needs to use the application to create the site. For him, he needs to create the website as quickly as possible, and this forces him at the time of creation, to preview his work to make sure everything is moving on as required. Since there is lack of realistic previews, he finds creation of the website challenging. Hence unable to work with time during the design. Problem Scenarios 2 Everest is again contracted to create yet another website for a company. Since he is a programmer, he chooses to use Drupal to carry out the task. He needs to place content on the site without struggle. In the process of putting content, he is craving for some sort of ‘edit in place’ mode as a visual way of controlling the site layout. This is difficult for him since Drupal lacks visually obvious ways to place content on his site. Programmers Problem Scenarios Problem Scenarios 3 Boniface being a computer programmer to write web-based applications needs to create a website. He needs to add modules on his application in Drupal. The workflow of finding and adding a new module becomes overwhelming and this consumes a lot of his time. Problem Scenarios 4 Boniface is a programmer who develops web-based applications, adds contents to sites and also an HTML designer. He currently works at Egerton university. His department has been assigned to re-design the institution’s website and has been given the mandate to add content to the site including maintenance. The work is to be executed using Drupal and it has to be done as soon as possible. Boniface is the only experienced programmer in a group of five. The others have to rely on him to give the direction on what to. The other programmers since they are new to the application, some words ("Module”,"Content types”,"Block" & "Triptych") have no meaning to them, i.e. they are obscure. It becomes a hard task for Boniface to explain these terms to members of his group. Claim analysis Situation Feature Possible pros (+) or cons (-) of the feature. Limited functionality Reduces the amount of features a user can use on Drupal. Leads to poor end products since the use has got limited functions to choose from. Makes the application simple to be used by everybody. Makes the application to consume less space on the host computer. Obscure Terminologies Gives new users hectic term in learning how to use the application Scares away new programmers who have no experience in programming. Makes the application unique Makes the application developers to add more functionality to the application. Keeps away hackers since they are no familiar with the terms. Lack of realistic previews Menus have no previews and this gives no visual clue to where on the page they will appear. The preview as provided by color module is what users expect to see everywhere. Lack of visually obvious ways to insert content Users lack some sort of mode to control their site layout Unable to click to add content on the site. Inability to make the relationship between Module number versions and modules listed on Drupal site. ACTIVITY DESIGN PROBLEM SCENARIOS Site builders Problem Scenarios Problem Scenarios 1 Everest is a site builder who carries out website design routinely. He uses Drupal to create his sites. He is contracted to create a website for a certain institution with great functionalities. Since he is a Drupal user, He needs to use the application to create the site. For him, he needs to create the website as quickly as possible; Everest realizes that with Drupal during the creation of the website, he can’t preview his work Since there is lack of realistic previews in Drupal. He needs to find a way of having realistic preview to make the creation of the website and future assignments less challenging. Thus he has to add some features on the application to enable him and other users to work with ease. Problem Scenarios 2 Everest again is contracted to create yet another website for a company. Since he is a Drupal user, he chooses to use Drupal to carry out the task. He realizes that putting content on the site under construction he finds it challenging to control the site layout. In the process of placing content, he is craving for some sort of ‘edit in place’ mode as a visual way of controlling the site layout. This is difficult for him since Drupal lacks visually obvious ways to place content on his site. He wishes the developers of Drupal could have made it easier for the users to add content. Programmers Problem Scenarios Problem Scenarios 3 Boniface being a computer programmer to write web-based applications needs to create a website. He needs to add modules on his application in Drupal. The workflow of finding and adding a new module becomes overwhelming and this consumes a lot of his time. Problem Scenarios 4 Boniface is a programmer who develops web-based applications, adds contents to sites and also an HTML designer. He currently works at Egerton university. His department has been assigned to re-design the institution’s website and has been given the mandate to add content to the site including maintenance. The work is to be executed using Drupal and it has to be done as soon as possible. Boniface is the only experienced programmer in a group of five. The others have to rely on him to give the direction on what to. The other programmers since they are new to the application, some words ("Module”,"Content types”,"Block" & "Triptych") have no meaning to them, i.e. they are obscure. It becomes a hard task for Boniface to explain these terms to members of his group. ACTIVITY DESIGN Problem Scenarios Site builders Problem Scenarios Problem Scenarios 1 Everest is a site builder who carries out website design routinely. He uses Drupal to create his sites. He is contracted to create a website for a certain institution with great functionalities. Since he is a Drupal user, He needs to use the application to create the site. For him, he needs to create the website as quickly as possible; Everest realizes that with Drupal during the creation of the website, he can’t preview his work Since there is lack of realistic previews in Drupal. He needs to find a way of having realistic preview to make the creation of the website and future assignments less challenging. Thus he has to add some features on the application to enable him and other users to work with ease. Problem Scenarios 2 Everest again is contracted to create yet another website for a company. Since he is a Drupal user, he chooses to use Drupal to carry out the task. He realizes that putting content on the site under construction he finds it challenging to control the site layout. In the process of placing content, he is craving for some sort of ‘edit in place’ mode as a visual way of controlling the site layout. This is difficult for him since Drupal lacks visually obvious ways to place content on his site. He wishes the developers of Drupal could have made it easier for the users to add content. Programmers Problem Scenarios Problem Scenarios 3 Boniface being a computer programmer to write web-based applications needs to create a website. He needs to add modules on his application in Drupal. The workflow of finding and adding a new module becomes overwhelming and this consumes a lot of his time. Problem Scenarios 4 Boniface is a programmer who develops web-based applications, adds contents to sites and also an HTML designer. He currently works at Egerton university. His department has been assigned to re-design the institution’s website and has been given the mandate to add content to the site including maintenance. The work is to be executed using Drupal and it has to be done as soon as possible. Boniface is the only experienced programmer in a group of five. The others have to rely on him to give the direction on what to. The other programmers since they are new to the application, some words ("Module”,"Content types”,"Block" & "Triptych") have no meaning to them, i.e. they are obscure. It becomes a hard task for Boniface to explain these terms to members of his group. EXPLORATION OF ACTIVITY DESIGN SPACE Drupal activity Real World metaphor Implication for Drupal Using Menu Is like a… Directory Guide It directs you to which activity you want to move to. It guides you in navigating the application. HCI RESEARCH HCI Research 1(Ubiquitous Computing and Cellular Handset Interfaces ? are menus the best way forward?Gary Marsden University of Cape Town, South Africa, gaz@cs.uct.ac.za Matt Jones University of Waikato, New Zealand, always@acm.org) Authors argue that interactive computer systems are hard to use. The authors listed some disadvantages of hierarchical menus while at the same time proposed alternative designs for usability interface.      The original design of menus was to exploit the fact that users of an application are better in recognizing command name from a list than recalling a particular command name from memory. The facts above lead to the introduction of well organized menus in Drupal to facilitate easy usage of the application.      However authors identified some potential problems of the hierarchical menus such as class-inclusion when novice users use the application. Another problem for novice users is that of discovering what functionality the application offers. To deal the problems, the authors suggested some solutions. One way to improve search time would be to improve the categorizations used in the menu classification; perhaps using novices to classify items in a way they feel is appropriate. HCI Research 2 Universality of design is an important element in human-computer interaction. Dix et al (2004) defines universal design as, the process of designing products so that they can be used by as many people as possible in as many situations as possible. The Royal National Institute for the Blind (2004) further adds, without the need for special adaptation or specialized design. In reality, its impossible to ensure that everyone has the same experience in using a product, but universal design aims to at least provide an equivalent experience for all users. Universal design is essentially about attempting to ensure that no-one is excluded through the choices a designer makes; but by giving careful consideration to these issues, the design is invariably made better for everyone (Dix et al. 2004). and hierarchical menus. However they believe the gain is limited and real improvements could only be gained through abandoning the menu structure. (Our product is to help user to avoid forgetting the cell watch or getting the cell watch lost. Our product features will be limited. Therefore, we decide the menu is still the way to go but adopt some ideas to improve the menu interface.) ACTIVITY DESIGN SCENARIOS ACTIVITY DESIGN SCENARIO 1 Everest having lacked the realistic previews in his favorite application, he is motivated to insert a feature in the application that will help him and his users work easily with the application. He thinks of a way to preview by color module so as users could easily get to it. Moreover, He plans to insert a feature whereby he could put previews on menus to replace the text descriptions that does not show where they will appear on the page. ACTIVITY DESIGN SCENARIO 2 Boniface is thinking of a way to make it easy to find and add a new module to a site under construction in Drupal since in the current version this is very overwhelming. To do that he needs to design a user friendly interface which is easier to navigate through and will enable users to easily access and add modules on their site. Claim analysis Situation Feature Possible pros (+) or cons (-) of the feature. Limited functionality Reduces the amount of features a user can use on Drupal. Leads to poor end products since the use has got limited functions to choose from. Makes the application simple to be used by everybody. Makes the application to consume less space on the host computer. Obscure Terminologies Gives new users hectic term in learning how to use the application Scares away new programmers who have no experience in programming. Makes the application unique Makes the application developers to add more functionality to the application. Keeps away hackers since they are no familiar with the terms. INFORMATION & INTERACTION DESIGN ACTIVITY DESIGN SCENARIO 1 Everest having lacked the realistic previews in his favorite application, he is motivated to insert a feature in the application that will help him and his users work easily with the application. He thinks of a way to preview by color module so as users could easily get to it. Moreover, He plans to insert a feature whereby he could put previews on menus to replace the text descriptions that does not show where they will appear on the page. ACTIVITY DESIGN SCENARIO 2 Boniface is thinking of a way to make it easy to find and add a new module to a site under construction in Drupal since in the current version this is very overwhelming. To do that he needs to design a user friendly interface which is easier to navigate through and will enable users to easily access and add modules on their site. EXPLORATION OF INFORMATION AND INTERACTION DESIGN SPACES Drupal Information Real world Metaphor Ideas about Drupal information design Previews are like… A guide An Assessor Directs the user on where to place content Shows Drupal users where there are mistakes in their websites. Menus are like… A Director They direct the user on where to find blocks and functions of Drupal. Interaction Design Drupal interaction Real world Metaphor Ideas about Drupal interaction Viewing a realistic preview is like… Testing the application Website View the content on the site, Checkout mistakes. Sign in, logout, do everything a website user can do. SKETCHES OF PROPOSED INTERFACES Administrator user interface Claim Analysis Situation Feature Possible pros(+) or Cons(-) Easy preview of work done Enables the developer to appreciate his/her work Clear(non-obscure) terminologies Enables easy usage of the application Facilitates synchronization of the terms used with those in other languages Does not make the application unique. References "Drupal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Apr. 2012. Web. 04 Apr. 2012. . "Core Context UX: Page & Component Library." Drupal Groups. Web. 04 Apr. 2012. . "Community Documentation." Documentation. Web. 04 Apr. 2012. . "How to Do a Magazine Issue Contents Page? | Drupal.org." Drupal - Open Source CMS | Drupal.org. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. . Jerdavis. "Advantage Drupal | Drupal.org." Drupal - Open Source CMS | Drupal.org. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. . "Understanding Drupal | Drupal.org." Drupal - Open Source CMS | Drupal.org. Drupal, Nov. 2010. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. . "System Requirements | Drupal.org." Drupal.org | Community Plumbing. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. . "Report from the University of Minnesota Drupal Usability Testing." Drupal. Web. 04 Apr. 2012. . "Drupal Migration - KNR Case Study." Drupal. Web. 04 Apr. 2012. . Read More