Empathy for internal users: Build and train for real content admins

Lily Berman, Elevated Third
Nick Switzer, Elevated Third

Drupal is a powerful tool for building, managing and presenting structured content, which can be an overwhelming experience for anyone who isn’t well-versed in Drupal terminology or UI conventions. Fortunately, Drupal is extremely flexible and extendable, which allows us, as builders, to create a sensible, focused experience for content admins. We’ll walk through real examples that leverage tools from the contrib and core space, like Paragraphs Browser, Media suite and Field Groups, along with admin theme, architecture and UX customizations to create a delightful and straightforward content admin experience.

In the second half of the presentation, we will take this thoughtful admin experience we’ve created and make it functional for our client team. We will walk through strategies to effectively train any audience, including a demo training of the example we reviewed in the first half.

You will learn how to:

Use out-of-the-box tools to improve standard Drupal admin conventions
Leverage grouping and UI patterns to create logical fieldsets in Drupal’s admin UI.
Align frontend designs with Drupal’s strengths to keep admin tasks focused,
Frame Drupal terminology so it’s easier to learn
Ensure your training is aligned with the client’s current proficiency
Make each item relevant to their ‘why’ of learning it
Speak about familiar terms with the newness required to train inexperienced clients
Speakers
Lily Berman
Account Manager @ Elevated Third
Whether she’s telling stories on stage in front of a packed auditorium or helping clients tell their stories online, Lily always strives to create compelling moments.

After years of working in nonprofits, Lily witnessed the power of effective storytelling while spokesperson for a traveling sustainability nonprofit. She also developed grit to do what’s needed and achieve the goal, no matter what. Her past clients range from local Denver nonprofits to those whose business spans the globe. From working partially in French to working partially in Drupal, Lily brings the skills of an adaptive multitasker to the many-hat-wearing role of AM.

In this industry, working together means building something greater than any one person’s skill set. Although account managers do not create designs or write code, AMs are essential to building strong teams and client relationships. Like a hub on a wheel, Lily likes making it seem effortless as her projects spin gracefully around her.

Nick Switzer
Development Director @ Elevated Third

https://www.midcamp.org/2019/topic-proposal/empathy-internal-users-build-and-train-real-content-admins

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