[GSOC Idea] Onboarding module (API and UI)
Proposal co-written with kyle_mathews
Onboarding is the process where site owners help new site members orient themselves and take the important initial steps toward becoming full-fledged members of the site. This process is critical for many types of sites commonly built with Drupal such as community sites, intranets, event / conference sites, etc.
Whitney Hess wrote that "[m]ost companies think that getting people to sign up is the ultimate challenge, but what about getting them oriented to your site and actually using it? That process of helping people get started is called onboarding, and it’s crucial that you give it the attention it deserves."
The goal for this project is to build a flexible, configurable system for helping Drupal site owners build onboarding processes custom to their needs.
The Onboarding module would consist of two parts. An API through which other modules can define onboarding "actions" and a UI through which the site administrators can order and arrange a number of onboarding flows.
Examples of possible onboarding actions for a conference website, for example, include:
- Buy your ticket
- Buy some training
- Fill in your profile
- Submit sessions
- Vote on sessions
- Submit bofs
- Vote on bofs
- Find other people who have similar profile fields
- etc.
The need served by onboarding -- getting site participants to perform specific actions on the site -- is one that can apply to any type of site.
Why you want to do this project:
By providing an extensible framework for onboarding on Drupal websites, we can meet this general need in a way that is customized to each site. Writing onboarding integration for existing core and contirbuted modules would be an obvious area for offering consulting services, and the co-author of such a system would be a likely choice when chosing someone to hire for this purpose.
There has been a fair bit of discussion already about this idea at http://groups.drupal.org/node/99289 For more background information, read on over there.
Rough sketch of what part of the onboarding UI might look like:
Comments
Very nice. Looking forward to
Very nice. Looking forward to seeing someone take on this idea.
Are you or Kyle willing to mentor this?
Is this a D7 module? or D6?
Both of us are willing to
Both of us are willing to help mentor.
My feeling atm is to just make it a D7 module. But that decision can be made later.
Kyle Mathews
I agree with Kyle - Let's
I agree with Kyle - Let's build this in D7.
I love this idea. It sounds
I love this idea.
It sounds perfect for GSoC and it sounds like it'd be an awesome module to use!
Excellent topic. Looking
Excellent topic. Looking forward to helping out with the UX design of this.
Hey, I could do this...
I've really loved the idea, and I think it would be a great thing to do in GSoC. My only setback is that i don't have as much knowloge in Drupal itself. I've already toyed with some modules and hooks, but I can't see how to do anything that big/great. Could you guys please elaborate how to do it in more thechnical terms? Also, can some of you guys be my mentors? I think this could be a really great module, but without a stong mentor I don't see it being done :(
Drupal knowledge not needed
Drupal specific knowledge isn't necessary (though you should already know how to program some at least). On technical details, there's already been quite a bit of discussion over at http://groups.drupal.org/node/99289. You can ask here if you have any more specific questions.
Also, Ezra and I are both willing to mentor - http://groups.drupal.org/node/138949#comment-456119
Kyle Mathews
Ok, you've sold it to me
I've already made my mind on doing this after reading the discussion at http://groups.drupal.org/node/99289 , and with you guys both willing to mentor me I couldn't decline it.
I'm currently writing my proposal.
Proposal is up
Proposal is at http://groups.drupal.org/node/140619
Thanks for the help. I've used many things in your description, if there's a problem with that please let me know.