The Site Building Usability Initiative

In this session Michael Keara (User Advocate) will present the results of some intensive research conducted in collaboration with Thomas Svenson (tsvenson) on the UX obstacles affecting the Site Builder who uses Drupal. At this presentation Thomas and Michael would like to announce their new Drupal community initiative for the Site Building Usability Initiative (SBUI).

We'll show what the UX really feels like in practice and demonstrate some of the key obstacles facing the site builder in real life circumstances. But more than that, we'll show how the UX obstacles arise out of some of the most commonly used development practices.

Michael Keara plays the hybrid role of UX specialist and Drupal developer so he can offer some unusual insights into the root causes of some critical UX issues - including showing clues about the 'missing UX layer'. In addition he will offer some suggestions about how we as developers can find ways of helping Drupal evolve to the next level and at the same time make things easier for not only site builders but also developers themselves.

(For some more ideas about Michael's vision take a look at his video Envisioning a New UX for Drupal. For more about Thomas' thoughts visit his blog at http://www.tsvenson.com/)