Training Your Drupal Clients

Steve Burge

Steve Burge

Steve Burge

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1) What should I teach?2) How should I teach?

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1) What should I teach?

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What should I not teach?

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“Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.” - Steve Krug

What should I not teach?

2007

•Morning: Content, Menus, Users, Settings, Modules, Themes

•Afternoon: Ecommerce, Kitchen sink ...

Our training has changed2011

•Morning: Content•Afternoon: Modules

• Principles

• Processes

• Concepts

• Facts

• Workflows

Level of Difficulty

• Workflows = Download the module. Install it. Enable it. Use it.

• Facts = You get modules from Drupal.org

• Concepts = What is a module?

• Processes = How does a module work?

• Principles = How? What? Why? Putting everything together

Levels of Difficulty

• Principles

• Processes

• Concepts

• Facts

• Workflows

Level of Difficulty

Developing Technical Training

by Ruth Colvin Clark

Suggested Book

Perfect beginner usability

Why Administration Menu?

Editing a field

4 clicks, 5 screens

1 click, 2 screens

Adding a menu link

3 clicks, 4 screens

1 click, 2 screens

Why WordPress?

WordPress Categories

1 click, 1 screen

Drupal Categories

3 new words: Taxonomy, Vocabulary, Terms

Drupal Categories

1. Click Structure

2. Click Taxonomy

3. Click Add vocabulary

4. Click Save

5. Click Add terms

6. Repeat until finished

7. Click Structure

Drupal Categories

8. Click Content types

9. Click Manage fields

10. Enter field details. Click Save

11. Click Save field settings

12. Click Save settings

13. Click Add content

14. Click a content type

WordPress Drupal

1 click.

1 screen.

1 click, 1 screen

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3 new words.

A new concept.

14 clicks.

14 screens.

Why Drupal 7?

Why Drupal 7?

One click to edit items on the page.

Drupal 6 required 4+.

Creating a block w/ Views 2

2 pages. 21+ clicks.

Creating a block w/ Views 3

1 page. 2 clicks.

What should I aim for?

What to teach Beginners?

1. Simple, repetitive tasks with few clicks

2. Use workflows

• Principles

• Processes

• Concepts

• Facts

• Workflows

Level of Difficulty

Drupal Workflows

Drupal Workflows

What if I can’t get that simple?

The Checklist Manifesto

by Atul Gawande

Suggested Book

“Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly” - Bruce Lee

Repeat, repeat, repeat

Manh.com

Economist.com

A more advanced workflow

1. Content types

2. Fields

3. Add Content

4. Views

5. Panels / Display Suite etc.

6. Theme

7. Users

What should I teach?

Confidence.

Drupal’s reputation precedes it

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2) How should I teach?

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Off-the-shelf•Classes

•Books

•Online video

How should I teach?

Custom•Small group sessions•Screen-sharing•Screencasts•Documentation

• Off-the-shelf

• Custom

Level of Difficulty

• Don’t try large groups yourself unless you really are a teacher.

• Professional live classes can help clients see the bigger picture.

Off-the-shelf: Public Classes

Most books are not good. Badly written and confused about their audience.

Honorable mentions:

•Drupal 7 Visual Quick Start (Beginners)

•Drupal’s Building Blocks (Site Building)

•Pro Drupal 7 Development (Code)

Off-the-shelf: Books

Explosion of online video in the last year.

In alphabetical order:

•BuildaModule.com

•Drupalize.me

•Lynda.com

•Nodeone.se

•OSTraining.com

•Tutr.tv

Off-the-shelf: Videos

• Small group and one-on-one sessions work really well.

• Problems are being getting to the client’s site and not getting interrupted.

Custom: Small group sessions

• Paid: Gotomeeting superior to Webex

• Free: Yuuguu, DimDim, TeamViewer

• Good for quick one-on-ones.

• Difficult to get true back-and-forth and attention spans are short.

Custom: Screen-sharing

• Paid: Camtasia, Screenflow

• Free: Jing, iShowU, Showmewhatswrong.com

• A very successful technique for showcasing smaller tasks.

Custom: Screencasts

Screensteps

Custom: Docs

Confluence

Custom: Docs

People Forget

• Simple workflows• Custom training based on their site• Constant reminders

Your core training should be custom documentation, supported by other methods.

How should I teach?

• Principles

• Processes

• Concepts

• Facts

• Workflows

Level of Difficulty

• Off-the-shelf

• Custom

Level of Difficulty