Drupal 8 is hard to learn. Or at least this a commonly expressed sentiment amongst both new and experienced Drupal users. To be fair, it's part and parcel for a framework that's infinitely flexible, with a UI that changes per-installation. Being complex isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it is important to understand what it is that makes Drupal perceived as hard to learn so that we can lower the barrier to entry, better fill the demand for Drupal developers, and help increase adoption.

Making Drupal easier to learn requires first understanding what makes it hard, then deciding where and how we should iterate to make improvements.

So let’s talk about it! I've got some of my own ideas based on the 6+ years experience I have teaching Drupal, and I'll start the session off by sharing those ideas, as well as breaking down the learning process that most people go through into 4 phases in order to help frame the conversation. Then, together we'll try and answer questions like:

What makes Drupal hard to learn?
What is currently being done to make it easier?
What else should we be doing?
How can we measure progress so we know if we’re making things better?
How can you/I/we help make Drupal easier to learn?
Is there a need for an initiative around learning, and if so what does that entail?
If you're learning Drupal 8 as a developer, site builder, or in any other capacity and have concerns about its complexity come share them. Do you work on another project and have lessons-learned to share? If you've got experience teaching, or mentoring others, come share your thoughts. If you're working on Drupal core, or documentation, come participate in the conversation so we can all work towards lowering the barrier to entry.

Lets work together to lower the barrier to entry for Drupal 8, and all future versions of Drupal.