UX

University websites are notoriously complex. Some of our higher ed clients manage literally hundreds of sites that mirror their institutions’ numerous faculties, campuses, services and audiences.

Designing a good user experience with these unique constraints is no easy task, and it seems like a lot of schools have issues with things like prioritizing their website’s content.

Case in point — I recently stumbled across a tweet that made me do a double-take:

Now that the year is nearing its end, I have the chance to reflect on what I learned about UX design this year, and want to share some highlights from a conference I attended last month.
 

The Layout Builder is one of the most exciting new features in Drupal 8. It's a site building tool that makes it easier to configure how your content is displayed in Drupal. You can use a drag-and-drop interface to combine fields, nodes, and other content, and actually control the layout used to contain that content.

It’s a new year, and one of your resolutions might be keeping a more minimalist lifestyle. A few years ago, I read Marie Kondo’s book about the benefits and practice of keeping things tidy. And it planted a seed in my mind about how this applies to content. And in particular, your content strategy. How can we apply the same techniques that result in a well-organized drawers and closets to well-organized content hierarchy and navigation? How can they guide your next content audit?

I’ve recently been researching, writing, and talking about content editor experience in Drupal 8. However, in the back of my mind I’ve been reflecting on the site builder experience. Every developer, site builder, themer who learns Drupal is going to try out the admin UI to get their site up-and-running. What are some things site builders often struggle with in the admin UI when learning Drupal?

The administrative interface for Drupal is notoriously intimidating for content editors who are new to the platform. I do a lot of training for Drupal content editors and administrators and have witnessed this first-hand.

In the coming months on our blog, I’ll be interviewing some of the members of our team at Evolving Web to give you some insight into how they work, their perspective and their field of expertise.

Evolving Web hosted another session of Evolve UX, our monthly UX Meetup for members of Montreal's user experience design community. As usual, we had a strong and enthusiastic turnout from people who wanted to both discover and showcase new projects. Hosted at the Evolving Web office, our Meetups provide a venue for designers and other digital folk to present and gather feedback on their latest projects.