Blog

I’m dashing this off because I just read Ethan Marcotte’s post “Free, faster”. In his post, he’s talking about a problem that we deal with all the time in our work with nonprofit organizations. And due to the political climate, we’re dealing with it even more than usual right now.

Over our years of working with organizations, we’ve developed some strong opinions about how to make the Drupal content editing forms as helpful as possible. Our colleague Eileen Webb talks about this as “AX” (like “UX”, but for content administrators). We think AX is particularly relevant in the nonprofit sector, where there is often uneven funding for technology and extra staff turnover that can result in a loss of org knowledge. Since I find that I’m continually referencing these three A List Apart articles on this topic, I’m going to stash them here on our blog for efficiency’s sake. 

We keep hearing this question: “Should I build in Drupal 7, or Drupal 8?” The answer to this question will differ depending on your organization’s needs and your project goals. But here’s one thing we can tell you: right now, if you build in Drupal 7 or Drupal 8, you should do so with a sound content strategy and a three-year plan. Why? Because Drupal is at a major transition point, and either path will need attention in the next three years.

Johanna and I just came back from Design4Drupal 2014 at the MIT Stata Center. I’ve been going to this Drupal Camp for several years, but this year certainly had the most informative and well-rounded set of sessions. I particularly enjoyed Steve Fisher’s (@hellofisher) keynote with takeaways like: “Good user experience is connecting the head and the heart” and “Silos are for farming, not web design”. 

Erin and I will be at the 2014 NTEN NTC next week in Washington, D.C. We’re going to helping with Drupal Day on Wednesday. I will also be doing a breakout session about diversity, accountability, and empowerment in nonprofits and the nonprofit tech community.