To scope this discussion - this is about our new core theme for Drupal 8 and who it will serve, and how they will use it.
Its not possible to design and build something that will suit everyone, so we have been working on narrowing it down to identify who might use our new core theme and what their needs might be.
I have expanded on this and tried to think about skill-sets, constraints, features and what type of sites might they be building.
I've read through all the related discussions (see below for links) and tried to summarize the feedback and add in a few details I think are important.
This is not complete and needs work - so I'm looking for feedback on the points I have raised and anything additional you would like to see added.
Who are our users?
From the discussions I deduced we have strongly identified with two distinct groups of users:
Low Skilled Site Builders: These people have no web development skills but need to have their website up and running quickly and easily. It needs to look nice and work out-of-the-box with a wide range of modules and configurations. These people are the client.
Advanced Site Builders: These people have web development knowledge and CSS and HTML skills (to varying degrees) and are capable of tweaking the design. These people are building sites for clients.
Constraints
Low Skilled Site Builders are primarily constrained by skills. They lack basic web development knowledge and don't really know (or should need to know) about things such as CSS, HTML or web standards, accessibility etc. Secondarily this group is constrained by time. Competing work or other life demands means this groups is likely to work on their site when they have free time.
Advanced Site Builders are primarily constrained by time. Tight budgets, competing work and life interests means this group needs to complete web building tasks quickly and efficiently. This group is also constrained by skill, however they care about it and are likely to invest in learning new skills, such as how to build a sub-theme.
Branding Requirements
Both groups are likely to have strong branding requirements such as existing logos, color schemes or other visual elements that need to be used in the sites themes.
Theme Features
Low Skilled Site Builders may be satisfied with no customization. Being able to upload their logo, images and so on will suffice. However we may be able to add value by offering features such as font settings, color module support and layout tools.
Advanced Site Builders have some skills and to a degree can add features themselves, however anything that reduces that overhead and adds value such as advanced layout control, fonts and granular control over color scheme may be highly attractive to these users.
Mobile Support
For both groups the theme must work out-of-the-box with a wide cross section of mobile devices. Neither of the groups are likely to have the time, skill or budget to extend to building dedicated mobile sites.
Site Features
I am raising the issue of Site Features so we can try to think of what sort of support we need in the theme - for example do we need to support a wide range of contrib modules, or can we assume covering all HTML elements and the normal Drupal classes suffice?
I'm going to propose these could be the bare minimum we bake in support for:
- All core module output
- Views
- Drupal Commerce
- Webform
- Superfish/Nicemenus or some sort of mega menu support
Site Types
This is really just a brain dump of site types I thought might be appropriate, please feel free to tear this to shreads, add your own and so on, you know the drill:
- Small business brochure sites
- Basic ecommerce
- Clubs
- Small NGO's and other non-profits
- Micro communities, such as Neighborhood groups
- Local church groups
- other?
Related discussions:
Designing for the Common Use Case
Design for Mobile
Add new theme to Drupal 8
I cross posted this rather widely to pull in other people, ideas and discussion points.