Although this wasn’t my first public speaking experience, it was my first time speaking at the biggest Drupal event. The most challenging part of the process for me was choosing a topic. After almost nine years of working with Drupal, I had accumulated enough development and project leadership experience to share, but every idea seemed to have already been covered. None of them really made me feel excited. I knew I needed to talk about something I was confident and passionate about to make it more engaging for the audience.
Then my husband asked, “What brings you joy? What are you proud of?” That’s when I realized: my long path in mentoring—helping others take their first steps in web development, learning Drupal, and building their confidence—was what I was truly proud of.
I felt mixed emotions throughout the submission process: excitement that I was finally proposing a session for DrupalCon, doubts about the topic’s value for such a large event, fear that I wouldn’t deliver the message concisely and engagingly (since I only had 15 minutes to speak), and, of course, the stress of having only three days to complete the submission. So you can imagine my disbelief when the session got accepted—and even more when I was chosen as a Featured Track Speaker for the Open Web community track!
Later on, when more than twenty people attended my talk, Empowering Drupal Developers: Redefining Training and Mentorship, and actively asked questions and sought my advice afterward, I felt reassured. It confirmed that the Drupal community truly cares about supporting each other and nurturing new developers. The community is clearly passionate about spreading knowledge and fostering a culture of mentorship and inclusion within their companies.
One of the biggest highlights of the event for me was witnessing Dries’ keynote from the audience. Seeing the father of Drupal casually queuing for waffles and chatting with everyone around him was surreal. It’s incredible how naturally people come together to share experiences, ask questions, and collaborate on projects. Contribution Day was another highlight for me—watching people volunteer their time and knowledge to improve and build the technology we all use and love was inspiring.
Overall, it was an amazing experience, both as a speaker and as a community member. I’m already thinking about what topic I could present at the next DrupalCon Europe. See you there!
Yevgeniya’s speech Gareth Alexander, licensed as All rights reserved.
Author
Yevgeniya Kobrina
Senior Developer
Other interesting stuff
Laurie Lim Sam
Hacktoberfest with Mautic
Laurie joined Hacktoberfest 2024 to contribute to Mautic. Discover how she reviewed pull requests, translated documentation, and implemented new features while giving back to the open-source community.
Laurie Lim Sam
Druid’s ongoing partnership with Business College Helsinki
Discover Druid's ongoing partnership with BCH Fullstack Development Program. Learn how we support new developers through mentorship, real projects, and internship opportunities.
14.10.2024
Simo Hellsten
Not the city but the people
I spent four nights in Barcelona but as for the landscape, I pretty much got to a conference center that was just the same as any other center and a hotel that was just the same as any other hotel. But for me the event was not about the city but the people attending.
Having worked in Drupal Core teams actively for some years I meet other developers and specialists on weekly bases in online meetings. With the Starshot initiative going on, with some people I even have regular meetings twice a week. DrupalCon is an excellent place to meet those people live or at least some of them. What a great feeling to actually meet someone after a couple of years of regular meetings over the internet. And also to meet your friends and acquaintances from the previous DrupalCons of course.
This time I had prepared a checklist of people I should have a chat with – to talk about a common task, ask advice for a project, to offer testing for a module or just to catch up. And by the last day of the trip I was happy to see all the names on the list checked, while having also made a number of new friends.
The cutting edge Drupal – a two edged sword
But it’s not only the people – we are also interested in what they do. This Summer and Autumn has really rushed the tech forward on many fronts. After the Starshot initiative was announced at DrupalCon Portland in the Spring of 2024 the community has really pulled together trying to make the deadline of Drupal CMS release in mid-January 2025. A lot of usability improvements have been planned to the Drupal CMS package, most important of which is the Experience Builder. Experience Builder allows easy but powerful wysiwyg page building experience with cutting edge components.
Experience Builder will unleash the creativity of the content editor, but Drupal has many faces. While one module or recipe will emphasize freedom another will be built on strict standards and structure. I myself can’t say which excites me more, the free flow of Drupal CMS and Experience Builder or the Schema.org Blueprints that automates Drupal content building using the Schema.org standard information structures. Sticking to the predefined content standards will make the site content extremely compatible with search engines and other automated tools. I expect it will probably also help with AI tools as well.
So I am looking at two seemingly opposite approaches to web content and love them both – they both have their uses but may even work together at the same time. Building components respecting the standards and fluently organizing them into pages using a modern page builder is something where Drupal can easily manage both in the future.
Being the one who always complains
For a few months I have been working as a member of Drupal Starshot’s (now officially named Drupal CMS) accessibility team. As Drupal CMS extends Drupal Core with a selection of prominent contributed modules we also wanted to expand the accessibility audits.
Dupal has a lot of great contributed modules and a lot of good people have poured their time and hearts into making them. Those modules that will be included in the Drupal CMS have now been under public spotlight for several months. As some of them have only one or two maintainers, I can imagine it’s a lot of pressure. (There are more people contributing code of course, but a maintainer has to make the decisions which fixes and changes go into the releases.) And now – on top of everything else – there are also me and my friends testing for accessibility and asking to fix this and that to meet some WCAG criteria.
Here the live meetings at DrupalCon help a lot. It’s one thing to send a formal sheet of accessibility issues by email to the maintainer and say: please fix this – and something quite different to have a cup of coffee with the person and say: Hi, nice to meet you. Has your module been audited for accessibility? If you like, I could do it. How would you like to get the list of findings?
A lot of developers are not so great with people skills and under pressure worse. I myself often say that I’m good with numbers and bad with people, but I try to learn. And I think I’m making some progress, as is Drupal’s accessibility.
Druid’s ongoing partnership with Business College Helsinki
Discover Druid's ongoing partnership with BCH Fullstack Development Program. Learn how we support new developers through mentorship, real projects, and internship opportunities.
Kirsi Vatanen
DrupalCon Barcelona 2024: It's All About Community
Explore our experiences at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, where the spirit of community, knowledge-sharing, and innovation were front and center.
14.10.2024
Mikko Hämäläinen
DrupalCon 2024 in Barcelona: Reflections on Community Evolution and Business Insights
Having DrupalCon 2024 in Barcelona holds a special significance for me. It was the first DrupalCon I ever attended, right after I joined Druid in 2015.
The almost ten-year gap between these two events is apparent in many ways. The community—and especially Drupal itself—has come a long way over the years. But there are also similarities. Back in 2015, the community was eagerly waiting for Drupal 8 to be released. The new version would bring significant improvements to Drupal, mainly the move to object oriented coding and the adoption of the Symfony framework. These changes also meant that from Drupal 8 onwards there was an upgrade path that allowed sites to be upgraded between major Drupal versions with relatively little effort. It was a massive change that benefited both the developers and the customers.
In 2024, the community is once again on the cusp of major, positive change. The ongoing Drupal Starshot project will release a new distribution of Drupal around the end of the year. This distribution will be somewhat unimaginably called Drupal CMS. While the name might spark some debate, the features it will bring will undoubtedly make Drupal the best and most marketing-friendly content management system to date. The “old” Drupal Core isn’t going anywhere, and it will remain a top choice for more custom, less marketing-driven web services.
During his annual “Driesnote” presentation at DrupalCon Europe, project lead Dries Buytaert showcased the outcomes of the community’s work on the Starshot project—and it was truly impressive. The customer centric presentation focused on showing everyone what can already be done with Drupal CMS. My personal favorites were the AI assistant for generating new content types, fields and importing data from existing web sites, the new recipes that allow grouping and installing site functionality with almost a single click and the ease of creating impressive looking web pages with the CMS’ Experience Builder.
Many have said that this year’s Driesnote was the best one yet, and I have to agree.
Another highlight of my DrupalCon experience was the Drupal Business Dinner. Formerly known as the CEO Dinner, this event brings agency leaders together to network and discuss the business side of the Drupal ecosystem. It’s an annual event, preceded by a survey on the state of the Drupal business, with the results presented and discussed during the dinner. This year, the presentation at the dinner was a shorter summary, while the full version was presented the next day during a BOF session at the venue.
The dinner is always an excellent opportunity to meet people working with similar challenges but in a different environment. This year, I found myself seated with people from the US, Canada, and Slovenia. We enjoyed a thorough discussion about the global state of affairs, accompanied by a hearty three-course dinner.
Druid’s ongoing partnership with Business College Helsinki
Discover Druid's ongoing partnership with BCH Fullstack Development Program. Learn how we support new developers through mentorship, real projects, and internship opportunities.
Kirsi Vatanen
DrupalCon Barcelona 2024: It's All About Community
Explore our experiences at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, where the spirit of community, knowledge-sharing, and innovation were front and center.
10.10.2024
Arto Iijalainen
DrupalCon Barcelona 2024: Community Reunions, Business Insights, and an Unforgettable Hike
This was the second time I attended DrupalCon in Barcelona. Back in 2015, I traveled there earlier with my wife (girlfriend at the time), explored the city and got engaged!
On the morning of the first conference day, my wife-to-be flew back home, and the conference started. Whatever agenda I had prepared for the event was pretty much washed away.
This time, my wife decided to stay home with the kids and I was able to fully concentrate on the conference. My agenda was to understand what Starshot / Drupal CMS will bring to the table and how far are we. And, of course, to reconnect with old friends and make new ones within the Drupal community.
I am really thrilled with the progress of Drupal CMS! The first release candidate will be launched on December 11th at the time of DrupalCon Singapore and the actual 1.0 release will happen on 15th of January 2025. The only thing that we really need to wait for is the Experience Builder, which will be released with the Drupal CMS 2.0 in late 2025. The Experience Builder will be a game changer for the content editors as it enables them to easily compose the pages they are building with the components tied to the organization’s design system.
DrupalCon isn’t just about the conference sessions. As an owner and board member, I always find it interesting to attend the CEO/business dinner and hear about the latest market trends in Europe and the US.
The cherry on top of the entire trip was the DrupalHike, where we climbed to the summit of Sant Llorenc del Munt! Our guide and fellow Drupalist, Fred, led us along lesser-traveled paths with stunning views. The sense of adventure still lingers with me.
Druid’s ongoing partnership with Business College Helsinki
Discover Druid's ongoing partnership with BCH Fullstack Development Program. Learn how we support new developers through mentorship, real projects, and internship opportunities.
Kirsi Vatanen
DrupalCon Barcelona 2024: It's All About Community
Explore our experiences at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, where the spirit of community, knowledge-sharing, and innovation were front and center.
20.09.2024
Pasi Järnstedt
How to tackle the “monsters” lurking in public sector websites
As a website administrator, you face an increasingly demanding job. It’s not enough to create engaging content, master SEO, and keep your organization’s information up-to-date. On top of that, you also need to comply with the requirements of the Information Management Act, the Digital Services Act, and data protection laws. These “monsters” often end up lurking under the bed because you’re unsure where to even begin.
In this blog, I’ll briefly outline these “monsters” and provide a few tips to help you get started. These guidelines won’t cover everything or guarantee perfection, but a little is better than nothing.
Accessibility
Website accessibility means that as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities, can easily use the service. This includes technically error-free implementation, a clear and understandable user interface, and content that is easy to comprehend.
At a minimum, check the following:
Visit a random page from your site’s footer menu. Imagine a user lands on this page via Google. Can they understand where they are within the site and what topic the page relates to?
Ask a colleague to find a guide or page unrelated to their usual tasks. Does the menu make sense? Can they find the page in multiple ways (menu, sitemap, internal search)?
Can you navigate your site using only the keyboard (tab, space, and enter keys will be your friends here)?
Test your site on a mobile device.
Does your site have an accessibility statement?
Additionaltips:
Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool for more guidance on improving accessibility, along with other useful information.
Data security is about ensuring the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of the service. Data privacy, on the other hand, refers to using personal data for its intended purposes and minimizing the amount of collected data.
Improving both data security and privacy starts with identifying what data is used and what risks are associated with it, followed by preparing for potential issues.
First steps to improve data security:
Gather information:
What non-public data is stored in your service? For example, feedback, inquiries, or data behind login systems.
List all the services connected to your platform, such as the content management system, analytics, chatbot, server capacity, domain management, etc.
Collect a list of companies and contact information related to the services mentioned above.
Gather a list of administrators and user accounts for the services.
Risk assessment:
Do you know all the entities involved with your platform? Do you know who can modify the content?
Would data leaks cause any harm?
How long can the service be down without significant impact?
What if all data in the service is completely or partially lost?
Get the basics right:
Are user accounts only given to the right people, with appropriate access permissions?
Do you know who logged into the system and when?
Can you view the content’s version history?
Do you know where backups are stored, and have you practiced restoring them?
Have security updates been installed for your software? Who is responsible for this?
How do you receive information about security threats?
Prepare for the unexpected:
What steps should be taken if the service is down for an extended period?
How can you restore backups?
What if the service needs an emergency shutdown? For example, if it starts distributing viruses.
How could you switch to an alternative service if things go wrong?
Checklist for improving data privacy:
Make sure your privacy policy is easily accessible, and that you understand its contents.
Ensure you aren’t collecting more data than specified in the privacy policy.
Keep personal data up-to-date, and don’t retain unnecessary information longer than necessary.
Are you transferring data outside the EU/EEA?
If so, ensure this is mentioned in your policies, and that transfer mechanisms are covered in agreements.
If not, avoid installing tools like Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics on your site.
If you use cookies that are not strictly necessary for the technical functionality of the service, ensure your cookie policy is on the website, and that it’s as easy to reject cookies as it is to accept them.
Remember, achieving perfection is nearly impossible. The key is to make continuous improvements step by step, focusing on what is most relevant and practical.
Would you like to hear more? Get in touch using the form, and I will get back to you shortly.
Discover the journey of a first-time speaker at DrupalCon, from choosing a meaningful topic to sharing the passion for mentorship in the Drupal community. Experience the highlights of DrupalCon, from Dries' keynote to the collaborative spirit of Contribution Day.
Simo Hellsten
Not the city but the people
Simo has been actively working with Drupal Core teams for several years, regularly meeting other developers and specialists in weekly online meetings. Now, it was finally time to meet them face to face.
05.09.2024
Mikko Hämäläinen
Website personalization in practice
One of the key challenges for online services is the ability to provide content and services to diverse user groups while maintaining discoverability. A company’s website serves many different user groups, such as prospective and current customers, job seekers, and investors. Each of these groups has its own specific needs when it comes to content.
In e-commerce, personalization has long been a standard, at least in the form of product recommendations. However, in other online services, personalization is often conspicuously absent, particularly in the public sector, which is increasingly offering transactional services through its websites. Megamenus have been an impersonal response to this challenge, one that could be addressed more intuitively by genuinely considering the user’s needs.
Target communication to different customer groups using automation
A company’s website is connected to its marketing automation system, and they have launched a new product serving two distinct customer groups: private sector businesses and public sector organizations. The marketing team has created a landing page in the content management system that provides a general overview of the product. However, they want to emphasize features that are particularly relevant to each customer group.
The marketing automation system segments visitors based on the content they have previously browsed, categorizing them as either private sector or public sector customers. Personalization is applied to all site visitors, regardless of whether they are identified users or anonymous visitors.
Putting plans into action
Let’s start by creating a dynamic content section tailored to private sector customers in the marketing automation system. We’ll create a list of personalization features that are relevant to private sector customers, illustrate it, and add a call-to-action link at the end.
This content section will be given the short name “customer-experience-private” (asiakaskokemus-yksityinen).
Next, we define the conditions under which the content will be displayed on the website. It’s sufficient for us that the user belongs to the customer segment “private sector customer” (Yksityisen sektorin asiakas).
After that, we move to the content management system to edit the previously created landing page. The dynamic content is embedded between the sections titled “Kohti parempaa asiakaskokemusta” and “Personoinnin rakentaminen”.
Dynamic content from Mautic can be easily embedded into any content management system using HTML code. The necessary line of code can be copied and modified to include the correct dynamic content shortcode.
If no dynamic content is available to display, the automatically added by the editor will appear as a blank space on the page. However, this can be replaced with default text instead.
Testing personalization
Testing personalization is straightforward. Start by visiting the site in incognito mode, which keeps the user anonymous. The finalized landing page will look like this when the user has not been identified as a private sector customer.
For testing purposes, find the anonymous user in Mautic and manually add him to the “Private Sector Customer” (Yksityisen sektorin asiakas) segment. Mautic can track both identified and unidentified users; the latter are users who do not yet have contact information or marketing consent. Personalization is one of the few ways to enhance the customer experience for these anonymous visitors.
Normally, segmentation would be automated by building a campaign within the marketing automation system. The customer segment could be determined based on the visitor’s browsing history, such as their interest in specific customer case studies or other pages.
However, for this test, we’ll manually add the user to the segment.
The test user refreshes the landing page in his browser, and Mautic loads the personalized content onto the page. This means that the list of personalization features relevant to private sector customers—created with ChatGPT—appears in the desired location on the site.
Simple Yet Complex
This simple example demonstrates how website content can be tailored and targeted to a specific audience. The same outcome can be achieved in various ways, such as by creating separate landing pages for each segment and directing visitors to the appropriate pages via marketing campaigns. When personalization is integrated into marketing automation, it allows for better control over the customer experience for visitors arriving organically on the site.
Segments and personalized content can be created freely, making it possible to implement more complex scenarios as needed. Below is a view of three different versions of the same landing page: one for non-segmented visitors and two for segmented user groups.
I implemented this example using the standard features of Drupal and Mautic in Druid’s demo environment. With a few small adjustments, the content editing experience can be further improved. For instance, dynamic content can be embedded by selecting the appropriate content block directly from the drop-down menu in Drupal’s editor.
If this topic piques your interest or resonates with your everyday needs, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to give you a more detailed demonstration of Mautic’s functionalities.
Laurie joined Hacktoberfest 2024 to contribute to Mautic. Discover how she reviewed pull requests, translated documentation, and implemented new features while giving back to the open-source community.
Laurie Lim Sam
Druid’s ongoing partnership with Business College Helsinki
Discover Druid's ongoing partnership with BCH Fullstack Development Program. Learn how we support new developers through mentorship, real projects, and internship opportunities.
31.07.2024
Kirsi Vatanen
How to create an outstanding user experience on your website
Why does your company’s website exist? The question might sound trivial at first, as it’s clear in today’s world that if a business isn’t online, it might as well not exist. Consumers are online, and online interactions are only increasing. But is your web service truly customer-centric? Does it serve your customers more than it serves your business?
Most companies believe they offer a good customer experience, but rarely is the perspective genuinely customer-focused.
If you want your site to be more than just a mundane business card with basic info, promotional talk, and contact details, it must deliver value to your customers. And to provide value, you need to understand what your target audience values and needs.
From the company’s perspective, a good web service reaches the right people, and visitors find what they’re looking for and perform the desired actions.
From the visitor’s perspective, however, it’s more emotional: a good web service not only provides value but also feels pleasant and effortless to use. If it doesn’t, the customer is easily lost.
So how is a good user experience created online? These five steps will take you a long way.
1. Involve the users in the designing process
Too often, user needs are overlooked when building web services. It’s essential to utilize user testing and surveys during the design process. This ensures that the information is presented to users in the way they expect to receive it.
2. Ensure good usability
Users appreciate quick and effortless transactions. At its best, a web service is so easy to use that navigation is intuitive.
The service’s functionalities are clarified with visual elements, and users are gently but clearly guided along the path towards the desired action.
3. Provide truly useful content
It’s important to consider the entire customer journey rather than just a single purchase event. How can you help the visitor when they are just beginning to look for a solution to their problem? How can you serve the customer after the purchase? How can you encourage the customer to return?
Forget about your product and focus on solving the problems users face at different stages of their journey. Meaningful content that engages the customer is key here, whether it’s a thought-provoking blog post, guide, video, discussion forum, or even a recipe bank.
4. Make an impact with visuality
The appearance of the site should reflect your company’s message. A significant part of the first impression is formed based on the visual style of the site. The visual style is one of the most important tools a company has to convince the customer and build trust.
5. Invest in scalability
As your business grows, the user experience of the web service must scale smoothly with it. For the user, it’s important that the service operates consistently and that they don’t have to learn new things as the system expands.
A good user experience is a significant competitive advantage, and its importance for business success is constantly growing. It’s about serving customers and creating customer satisfaction.
Your website should be seen as a tool for building and maintaining customer relationships. At its best, your service not only supports your business but becomes a profitable business model in itself, delighting customers—so much so that they keep coming back and recommend it to others.
If you want to improve your website or have questions about its user experience, feel free to get in touch.
Discover the journey of a first-time speaker at DrupalCon, from choosing a meaningful topic to sharing the passion for mentorship in the Drupal community. Experience the highlights of DrupalCon, from Dries' keynote to the collaborative spirit of Contribution Day.
Simo Hellsten
Not the city but the people
Simo has been actively working with Drupal Core teams for several years, regularly meeting other developers and specialists in weekly online meetings. Now, it was finally time to meet them face to face.
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