For that's the proper question to ask yourself: "What is the best web design platform for my own use case?"
For your own context, which is made of specific:
needs
constraints and limitations
business goals and objectives
particular budget
level of technical know-how
type of website that you need
And this last factor is, by far, the most important criterion to use when you evaluate the most popular web development platforms.
When you try to identify the best one for you...
It's also the criterion that we'll use in today's post to highlight for you the best web design platforms in 2019.
Just scan through the different types of website listed here below, spot your own type, and see which platform makes your best choice.
1. If You're Building a Low-Maintenance, User-Friendly Website...
Say you're not planning to "take over the world" with your new website and you need to be able to keep its maintenance and upkeep to a minimum.
Then you opt for Squarespace...
And here are the top reasons why you would want to choose this particular platform for web design:
you get a conveniently simple interface
it ships with a load of modules to choose from
it provides you with eCommerce functionality
It's true, though, that you don't get that much customization freedom as you'd get with other platforms, but it does the job if it's a:
user-friendly
low-maintenance
... website that you're planning to build.
2. If You're Building a Visually-Appealing Website...
In this case, your 2 best options are WordPress and Drupal.
The first "spoils" you with so many great templates to choose from to create a visually-stunning website. Not to mention the heavy load of WordPress plugins that you can use for custom-tuning your site to fit your aesthetical needs perfectly.
Whereas for Drupal (and particularly Drupal 8), you just can't ignore its built-in responsive design capabilities.
Note: one of the aspects that might discourage you from choosing this CMS to create a great looking website is the lower number of Drupal developers compared to the "deep" pool of WordPress talent. That's why we've focused an entire post on the topic of "hiring Drupal developers" and "stuffed" it with tips on where exactly to find the right Drupal talent for your project.
3. If You're Building an Enterprise-Level, Complex Website...
Drupal "rocks supreme" on this category:
it's equipped to withstand floods of traffic and massive volumes of content
it's designed to handle complex, multi-user content creation and management systems
it's robust enough to power heavy multi-site infrastructures
it ships with tons of modules to extend its functionality even further
In short: Drupal's an "enterprise-ready" platform; it's built precisely for large, high-trafficked websites (think Tesla.com, eBay, NASA, Harvard University's website).
Where do you add that Drupal stands out as the best platform for responsive web design, as well...
4. What Is the Best Web Design Platform to Rank High on Google?
If out-of-the-box SEO optimization features are your top priority, then you'll need to choose between WordPress and Drupal. They both ship with robust plugins, respectively modules, aimed at helping you make your website SEO-friendly.
WordPress
The system's already ideally optimized with regards to SEO:
it's coded so that search engines can easily crawl in
managing heading and title tags is dead-simple
creating and updating content's highly intuitive
Word of caution: WordPress's ease of use and SEO-friendliness does come at a cost: being so popular makes it particularly "tempting" for hackers, too. You don't want to cut down on preventive maintenance costs on your future website.
Drupal
Its SEO modules — Pathauto, Yoast, Global Redirect — are designed to streamline all your SEO efforts, from optimizing your meta tags to... setting up your SEO-optimized URLs.
5. If You're Building a Fully Customizable and Scalable Website...
"What is the best web design platform for me if I want complete freedom of customization and if I'm planning to scale my website over time?"
It's... Drupal, again.
From all the most popular web development platforms out there' Drupal sets itself apart as:
the most flexible one: there's a module for any customization work that you might want to do on your website
the most scalable one: Drupal's designed to scale up, seamlessly, to accommodate huge loads of content and traffic
6. If You're Building an eCommerce Website...
What platform should you power your eCommerce goals with?
Well, it depends greatly on whether it's a powerful "selling machine" that you're planning to build or an online store for your start-up business in eCommerce.
Magento
If you have a huge product inventory (maybe even a multi-source one), Magento's your best option. Here's why:
it's robust: Magento's built to cope with an intricate and heavy infrastructure of multiple stores, currencies, languages...
it's feature-packed
it's scalable: feel free to start with a small online store and to grow it into a complex multi-store network; Magento's designed to accommodate your growth plans, no matter how ambitious
Shopify
If you need a website for your start-up eCommerce business and you don't want to get tangled up in customization, a hosted platform like Shopify is the best option:
it's SEO-friendly
it provides you with unlimited bandwidth
it adjusts to your specific eCommerce business model: POS, dropshop, subscription-based...
it provides affiliates capabilities, purchase buttons, Facebook selling support, etc.
Word of caution: do keep in mind that, if you decide to migrate your online store to another platform, it's just your product information that you can export from Shopify.
In other words: don't expect to be able to transfer your user interface and your website design, as well.
7. If You Need a Beautiful Site but Have no Web Design Experience...
"What is the best web design platform for me if I want to create an eye-catching website but... I'm a non-developer?" you wonder.
"Oh, yes: and I want to build it fast and easy, if possible?" you ask.
It's Wix.
From the best web design platforms in 2019, Wix suits your needs and limitations perfectly:
you get a user-friendly WYSIWYG interface
it "spoils" you with a rich template collection
it's easy to learn and even easier to use
it "tempts" you with both free and low-cost options
In short: Wix is for anyone with close to zero web design experience who wants the freedom to set up, customize and further update his visually-appealing website himself.
8. If You're Building just a Small, Reference-Driven Website...
What if you just need to put together a basic business website to showcase your services? Nothing fancy, just a small website that should provide more detailed information to your potential new clients.
And that should fit your budget...
Then, what you need is the best website builder software that helps you get your site up and running in no time and grants you full control over its code and design.
And there are quite a few great ones:
Site Manager
Weebly
SiteBuilder
Shopify if it's a no-fuss eCommerce website
Wix, again
The END!
Have you found that type of website that you're planning to build listed here?
Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 30'2019
What Is Acquia Developer Studio?
Acquia Developer Studio is a collection of tools designed to simplify and streamline all building, testing and deploying processes in Drupal.
Or, here's another equally valid definition of this new product:
It's a command-line tool that provides developers with all the tools they need to build digital experiences in Drupal... fast. A handy toolbox that boosts their productivity.
In short: Acquia Dev Studio enables developers to get a Drupal application up and running — locally and in Acquia Cloud — in... no time.
It Provides You With...
1. A Browser-Based Remote Development Environment (IDE)
The integrated IDE “spoils” your Drupal developers with a browser-based UI that speeds up all those common setup tasks they handle in each new project.
Take it as a “cloudstation” for all your Drupal-related processes; one customized to each one of your different Drupal projects.
2. A Command Line Interface (CLI)
Storing +200 Acquia Cloud API commands and an entire toolbox, this CLI enables any Drupal developer to build a new Drupal 8 project within... a few minutes.
Just try to step into your developers' shoes:
You have all those tools that you depend on for building, testing, and deploying your code — Acquia Pipelines, Lightnining, Landom BLT — conveniently at hand in one connected toolchain.
Why Would You Want to Use Acquia Developer Studio?
Here's a quick empathy exercise for you:
Say you're one of the developers working on your current Drupal project. You're eager to implement those cool features that you have in mind, but as you delve in, you realize that there are some critical security patches to handle ASAP. Next, you need to address a software upgrade issue...
Not to mention that you constantly need to make sure that all those tools in your heavy toolbox — Drush, Composer, Git, etc. — work perfectly together.
How do you manage to speed up all the tedious, repetitive tasks that “kill” your enthusiasm and to focus more on the exciting, more rewarding ones instead?
Source: Acquia.com
On those that add true value to your project?
How do you juggle with so many tools needed for getting any Drupal app up and running? With so many Drupal processes: building, testing, deploying, monitoring?
Well, you use the Acquia Developer Studio to streamline all the processes and automate all the... mundane tasks.
Source: Acquia.com
Take it as your all-in-one-place suite of tools or your “productivity booster”.
As a company, you'd want to use it because you'd:
cut down on your costs: the development cycle is shorter
gain more flexibility in customizing your products to your users' needs: with all your disparate tools centralized in one central ecosystem and all your processes significantly streamlined
And How Do You Install It?
It's as quick as entering the following command in your terminal window:
https://downloads.acquia.studio/install-standalone.sh | bash
Then, provide the information for sudo access, next just carry out a few more easy steps indicated to you on the corresponding Acquia Docs page.
The END!
These are the answers to your legitimate “What” and “Why” questions regarding the Acquia Developer Studio.
How do you find these benefits? Are they relevant enough for your own developer workflow?
Image by rawpixel from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 28'2019
It scales like no other — built to accommodate huge amounts of content and massive volumes of traffic — it's incredibly robust, it's gone through a lot of innovative changes these +15 years and yet... Drupal's still less popular than WordPress. So, you cannot help wondering: “Why is WordPress so popular?”
What makes it more tempting than Drupal?
Since everyone agrees:
Drupal's a beast... It provides lots of robust “goodies” right out of the box, it powers some of the most high-loaded websites out there, it's developers' first choice for custom development...
Whereas WordPress is just a... popular blogging platform, right?
And yet, stats don't lie:
Any Wordpress vs Drupal in 2019 comparison would reveal to you that the first still rocks supreme.
Are you as puzzled by this paradox as we have been?
Well, then let's shine some light on this enigma. Here are the 3 strongest reasons why you would use WordPress over Drupal:
1. It's More Flexible: A Huge Ecosystem of Plugins and Themes
One of the most tempting benefits of choosing WordPress over... any other CMS is its unmatched flexibility:
It “spoils” you with an overwhelming no. of customization options.
+40,000 plugins, one or several for pretty much any functionality that you'd like to “inject” into your WordPress site. Lots of customization options to use on your WordPress theme: change fonts, color, layout, you name it.
You can easily get your blog/info portal/basic brochureware business site/gallery with a portfolio up and running in no time, then gradually turn it into a full-featured, custom-tuned website.
Note: I know what you might think: “But Drupal, too, is highly flexible. It ships with a rich collection of modules to... delve into and choose from.”
True, but, unlike Drupal with its load of modules, WordPress makes incorporating a plugin so much simpler. So much more accessible for... non-developers, as well.
2. Why Is WordPress so Popular? Because It's So Easy to Use!
From all the features of WordPress “guilty” for its popularity, its user-friendliness stands out as the most irresistible one.
WordPress caters to non-developers and junior developers, as well, unlike Drupal, which still carries its “For geeks only!” label. It's that accessible, that a non-technical user could get a light, basic WordPress site up and run in... 5 minutes.
Of course, custom-tuning it to perfectly fit your needs and preferences will require some extra time.
For any beginner, with zero web development experience, who doesn't want to get tangled up in PHP, HTML, and CSS, WordPress is a “declaration of independence”:
He gets a WYSIWYG editor that, conveniently enough, looks a whole lot like Word, and they get drag-and-drop functionality, as well. Assembling a simple website and then administering it and even further customizing it doesn't get any more straightforward than its gets with WordPress.
3. It's Backward Compatible... and That's a Huge Bonus
Why is WordPress so popular compared to Drupal?
The team behind it realized just what a pain it would be for end-users to break the backward compatibility of the platform that they got used to. What an ordeal their maintenance routine would become.
And so, WordPress users stuck to it. Its backward compatibility is, for them, the strongest proof that:
they've chosen a reliable platform
their loyalty is being rewarded
By comparison, Drupal 7's codebase was so frustratingly different from its predecessor's. Then, Drupal 8 came out as... a completely new world.
Just like Drupal's original creator, Dries Buytaert, pointed it out all too clearly:
Source: Dries Buytaert's blog.
The END!
These are the 3 main reasons why WordPress's more popular than Drupal: usability, backward-compatibility and flexibility/customization capabilities.
Curious now:
What other “hard to resist to” WP features would you have added to this list?
Photo by Fikret tozak on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 25'2019
Everybody agrees: website personalization is... power.
But how do you harness it? And, most of all:
How do you get the most of it?
How do you benefit from incorporating personalization into the customer experience delivered on your own website? Where do you start?
What precisely should you personalize?
What are the most effective ways to deliver relevant, contextual, conveniently tailored visitor experiences?
To lend you a hand, we've narrowed down all the best practices that you could possibly implement to the most effective ones:
1. But First: What Is Website Personalization?
It's the process where you use all the customer data at hand to deliver each visitor on your website an experience perfeclty tailored to his preferences, context, intent, and history, at precisely the right time.
I hope my definition has managed to “squeeze” in all the key aspects of this process.
Personalizing your website is no more than customizing the experiences that you provide there.
It's “baking” all the customer data at hand — browser patterns, 3rd party data, web analytics, sales funnel data — into different experiences for... different users.
2. How Would It Enhance the Visitor Experience on Your Website?
In other words: how would your website visitors benefit from your personalization efforts?
Here are the most powerful benefits:
easy content discovery
an intuitive search experience
relevant recommendations only
fewer decisions for them to make (think “the paradox of choice”)
contextual, perfectly tailored information
What visitors returning to your website expect is a relevant, valuable, and convenient interaction.
Why forcing anyone who's already introduced himself to you to keep telling you his name over and over again?
And website personalization is the way to deliver your customers precisely that type of frictionless, relevant experience.
3. 6 Effective Ways to Create Personalized Website Experiences
For there are, indeed, web personalization best practices to keep in mind.
Too many organizations consider it to be some sort of... magic. An extremely powerful one, that will turn your recurring customers into your brand's advocates.... just like that.
Instead, it's a long series of experiments where you keep adjusting your content and metadata to the user data and user segments that you've set.
Where you keep creating various scenarios until you've created those experiences that fit your customers just like... perfectly tailored suits.
Now, let me help you streamline this tedious process with a simple checklist of steps to take:
3.1. Treat Returning Visitors with a Little Extra Care
Rely on cookies to identify your returning customers, then make sure you deliver them relevant content.
Content, that would guide them further along the sales funnel.
3.2. Create Different Experiences for First-Time and Existing Customers
Attracting new customers is but one side of your key objective.
Engaging your existing customers is the other one...
And these returning customers expect to be treated differently. They expect to get:
personalized customer service for using your products/services (remember to tailor your landing page for both new and existing visitors)
special offers, a signal that you do recognize and value them for being your customers
… and that you want to nourish their loyalty.
3.3. Prioritize Content Differently for... Different Visitors
Take it as a “shortcut” to website personalization:
You do serve the same content to all your visitors, yet you prioritize certain services, products, messages differently.
You deliver each segment of users a different content hierarchy.
3.4. Serve Them Content/Product Recommendations
“You may also like...” type of lists weight heavily on the personalized web experiences that you create.
Quote source: Ryte.com
For this, you need to:
collect and then filter through your valuable customer data
fill in a deep “pool” of content and metadata
use a robust recommendation engine to serve up perfectly tailored recommendations to your returning visitors
In short: engage them with product/content suggestions based on the user behavior data available to explore and to exploit.
3.5. Deliver Experiences Targeted to Different Audience Segments
But first, use all the customer data at hand to define those user segments.
You could segment your audience by:
number of visits on your website within a time-frame
location
user-behavior reflected in their past visits
referrals: have they landed on your website from a partner website or from a Google ad?
Put together all the customer data that you dispose of and extract “gold” information about your audience, like:
content preferences
where they're located on the globe
even custom user information
Then, use the resulting info to set up your audience segments and create website experiences personalized for each segment.
Set what user segment will see which part of your web content — unique offers, personalized messages, special products — and how precisely they'll interact with it.
3.6. Adapt Your Content to the Customer Journey's Phases
And I'm talking here about the phases where you:
raise awareness
educate and engage with your visitors
help them make their decision
So, make sure you don't greet a first-time visitor with a helpful tutorial on how to use the product he's just bought nor a returning visitor with a form he's... already filled in.
See my point?
The END!
Website personalization is a multi-layered process, with your customer data, collected from an ecosystem of different sources, right at its center.
Which of these best practices do you find most effective for your website's specific context and your own business goals?
Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 21'2019
Say you already have your product specifications clearly written and you start "hunting" for the right Drupal talent for your project. Where should you start your searches? And, once you've found a pool of talent, how to hire Drupal developers who are the perfect match for your skillset requirements and who fit your organization's needs?
What recruitment strategies should you apply to... speed up things a bit?
What criteria should you use for filtering through your candidates?
What questions should you prepare for the selected Drupal developers and... what questions should you be asking yourself, too? About your project needs, scope, budget constraints...
Let's get you some answers.
Here's a handy checklist including 5 tips that'll streamline your searches and optimize your selection process:
1. First: What Is a Drupal Developer?
What does a Drupal developer do?
Generically speaking, a "Drupal developer" does a lot of things:
conducts researches, selects and installs those Drupal modules that fit your project's feature needs
develops new modules, from scratch, tailored to your project's needs
tweaks and extends existing modules so that they provide the precise functionality that you require
handles the look and feel of your Drupal website/app by creating a custom theme that meets CSS/HTML code standards
handles different PHP implementations
architects your Drupal solution incorporating data, display, and information infrastructure
migrates your existing websites to Drupal
puts together and runs performance-boosting strategies on your existing Drupal website
And this leads us to the 3 main Drupal roles that you might "bump into" while running your investigations.
Each one with a specific skill set to evaluate and to set against your own project's size and scope.
For instance, no need to look for a Drupal themer when it's a new functionality that you want to get developed and integrated into your website...
1.1. Drupal Site Builder
If your Drupal project doesn't require highly complex feature implementation or a PHP "guru", but rather someone who:
is familiar working with the latest versions of Drupal and, overall, with site frameworks
has basic Drupal project management skills
has a decent understanding of the essential concepts of JS and PHP code
... then a Drupal site builder experienced enough to put together core and the right contributed modules and create a fully functional website is what you need.
1.2. Drupal Front-End Developer
Looking for someone to "revamp" your Drupal site's presentation layer?
Or we're talking about a new project, that you want to make sure it'll deliver the best user experience?
Then a Drupal front-end developer (or themer) is what you should be looking for.
One that:
is experienced enough to develop new themes and to customize existing Drupal themes
has extensive knowledge in basic PHP, JS/JQuery, HTML, CSS
sticks to the best testing practices to ensure that the delivered theme is fully responsive and light enough not to impact your website's performance
1.3. Drupal Back-End Developer
Or maybe you need someone with proven expertise to set up a robust "bone structure" for your Drupal project?
One who can:
develop a whole new module, if needed, to fit specific functionality needs
tune an existing module till it meets your feature needs to the slightest detail
prove his/her expertise in CSS, Object-Oriented PHP, HTML, JS/Query
Note: a Drupal back-end developer's knowledge is not limited to code; a great one knows what goes into building a Drupal site, knows general design concepts and deployment best practices, as well.
Of course, the list of Drupal role doesn't end here. From Drupal Design/UX to Drupal Architecture, to Drupal Product Owner to Drupal DevOps Engineering... you could populate it with pretty much any level of specificity that you aim for.
Which brings us to the next question:
2. What's Your Project?
In order to find the answer to your "How to hire Drupal developers for my project?" question you should first try to answer:
What's my project scope?
What about its size?
Which are the general and (more) specific feature needs?
For, as you've already seen, there's a whole bunch of Drupal roles out there and selecting the right one(s) for your project can get challenging. To say the least...
So, to narrow down your options, identify and examine your needs:
is it Drupal maintenance that you need for your current website? Then you should get reasonable and not expect a lead Drupal developer to "jump" right in
is it a whole new enterprise-grade Drupal solution that you need? Then you might want to adjust your budget and time resources to the level of Drupal experience required and the complexity of your project
is it just back-end Drupal talent that you need, maybe just someone to integrate a new feature to your website? Or a... full-stack developer?
Do you just have a rough idea of what you'd like him/them to develop or clear wireframes and project specifications already laid down? Such as:
Drupal security updates
enhancing your website's overall performance
various eCommerce integrations
custom-built content tools
... etc.
Do you need a freelancer Drupal developer or a contract-to-hire? Or you'd like to go with a staff augmentation solution?
As you take the time to ask yourself all the right questions you gradually start to identify:
what level of experience you need
what skill set your project requires
whether you need a Drupal developer to pay specialized attention to a specific area of your project or a generalist
what technology stack your project depends on
While you have your "Aha!" moments, simply turn your answers into... job responsibilities.
3. How to Hire Drupal Developers: Where to Look?
OK, now that you've identified your skillset needs and included them in your job description, it's time to "go hunting".
"But where can I find developers that have experience working with Drupal?"
You can run passive or active searches or... both.
Top channels to consider for passive searches:
job portals like LinkedIn, Monster, Glassdoor, Indeed ...
online Drupal (or PHP) communities
freelance platforms like Upwork, Toptal, Scalable Path
Top channels for your active searches:
social media Drupal groups
local IT communities
LinkedIn (when you start analyzing particular profiles on LinkedIn your passive search becomes... active)
Drupal.org (select the top Drupal profiles there and start evaluating them against your own requirements)
developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow
Note: an effective way to identify the perfect match is to delve deep into those profiles and evaluate those developers':
portfolios; are there any projects in there similar to yours?
Drupal roles that they "played" in different projects that they worked on
type of questions they posted
proof of them volunteering in different Drupal projects
documentation skills
Also, keep in mind to run a deep scan of the candidates' own social media profiles, as well. They're often packed with valuable information like:
number of connections within the Drupal community
number of projects that they've worked on, time spent on each of them and... number of clients, as well (is he prone to working with the same client on multiple projects?)
developer groups that he's joined
client feedbacks
4. 4 Questions to Ask Your Candidates
So, you've shortlisted your candidates and your "How to hire Drupal developers?" dilemma has turned into:
"How do I... know which is the best Drupal talent for my project?"
Here are 4 questions to ask them (among other things), which will speed up your "identification" process:
What techniques would you apply to enhance a Drupal website's performance?
What modules do you find essential, irrespective of the projet's scope?
Do you have a Drupal project portfolio that I can have a look at?
Have you contributed to developing or improving any Drupal modules?
5. What to Look for in a Drupal Developer: 8 Things to Evaluate
Level of experience, community involvement, proven expertise reflected in the projects that he's worked on, certifications... what precisely should you analyze first when you're evaluating your candidates?
Since the number of aspects that you could be checking can get... overwhelming, here's a shortlist of things to look into to identify your best match from a group of potential candidates:
5.1. GitHub Profile
It's a never-ending source of priceless information about your candidates:
how much time they spent on different projects
samples of their written code
details on their contributions
5.2. Experience Level
And here, what you should pay attention to is the no. of Drupal versions that they've worked with. The more... the merrier.
The more experienced that particular candidate is, the more familiar he is with Drupal's specific "roadblocks" and how to address them.
5.6. Technical Expertise
How do you assess their level of technical expertise? There are 2 straightforward methods to apply:
ask your candidates to review some of their own code
challenge them with a specific scenario: a challenge that they should find a custom solution to (e.g. "What module would you use to...?")
5.7. Community Involvement
An experienced Drupal developer is (most of the time) an active member of the Drupal community, as well.
Look for profs of his/her active involvement: discussions where's he used his expertise to help out other developers, contributions to different projects...
5.8. Client References
Are there any client references online to have a look at? If not, can he/she give you any references that you could talk to?
And this is particularly important if it's Drupal agencies that you're evaluating.
The END!
These are the 5 aspects to look into for finding your personalized answer to the "How to hire Drupal developers" question. Happy "hunting"!
Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 18'2019
What is Acquia Cohesion? What challenges that you're facing nowadays does it help you solve?
Or, if you want to put it this way:
How does this Acquia & Cohesion DX8 solution enable your organization to align with the "do more with less" agile trend?
In this respect, in today's blog post we'll:
define this Acquia product focusing on what sets it apart from other website builders out there
identify your organization's specific needs, that Acquia Cohesion's designed to addresses
highlight some of its most powerful and... empowering features
1. What Is Acquia Cohesion?
It's a low-code Drupal add-on that empowers less technical people in your team — content authors, marketers, designers — to build websites faster and cheaper via a simple drag-and-drop user interface.
In short: it simplifies the whole Drupal site-building process.
It gives power to non-dev teams to:
come up with new designs
set up new layouts
create web pages
use components site-wide, while selecting different styles to boost the user experience
assemble new Drupal websites from scratch
No CSS, PHP, HTML or Drupal theming knowledge required...
Now, just imagine:
how much time your developers would gain, time that they could then invest in more innovative work instead
how much easier it'll be for your non-developers to be 100% brand compliant
how much faster it'll get to launch new websites whenever needed
how much simpler it'll get for your non-technical team to manage hundreds, even thousands of Drupal websites
2. Why Did Acquia Acquired Cohesion?
Well, for 3 obvious reasons. Acquia wanted to enable organizations to:
launch their Drupal websites faster (up to four times faster)
achieve brand consistency across their ecosystems of websites
grant their non-dev teams more freedom and more control over the website infrastructures that they manage
In a few words: Cohesion DX8 makes Drupal (even) more accessible to companies worldwide.
3. 4 Signs that Your Company Needs this Low-Code Site Builder
Quote's source: Dries Buytaert's blog.
Let's take these 4 scenarios and see if you can relate:
your team's striving to "juggle with" 100s of Drupal websites, each one carrying its own network of e-commerce and social media tools and integrations
your short-term strategy includes launching... a few more scalable 100s websites
your marketers and content creators always need to wait in line for the development team to do its own work before they get to add any content to your new websites
your non-technical team depends on the development team for every content update they need to make (swapping a text box with an image, updating the layout...)
Are these challenges all too familiar to you?
Then you're definitely one of Acquia Cohesion's target users:
An organization looking to reduce their build times dramatically and to streamline the management of hundreds or even thousands of Drupal websites.
4. Real-Life Example of Acquia Cohesion "In Action"
Quote's source: Information Age.
Bayer is such an organization that recognized this site builder's potential and used it to overcome the challenges that it was then facing:
building thousands of standardized websites fast(er)
granting their non-dev team "independence" from developers to create Drupal websites at scale
5. Features You'll Want to Try First
Now that we've tackled your "Why" questions, let's address your "How" question, as well:
How do you make the most of Acquia Cohesion?
Therefore, we've hand-picked the 3 of its most powerful (and empowering) features that you'll be tempted to explore and exploit first:
5.1. In-Context Editing
In-browser, on-page editing couldn't get any more convenient than this:
Your content editor would just need to click anywhere on the web page where they need to make the update, hit the "Quick Edit" button and... edit it.
From making changes to the content itself to updating the layout of the page and settings, your editorial team can make changes on the fly.
Where do you add that the permissions control system helps them keep track of who has access to what.
5.2. Style Builder
The style builder that Acquia Cohesion ships with provides your design team with minimal coding experience components that they can easily:
drag and drop
arrange
assembly
... to their liking to create unique page layouts.
Thus, they get to put together their own templates right in the browser.
Note: feel free to go beyond the built-in styles and to get the most of the CSS properties and selectors.
5.3. Design Replication
Just imagine: what if you could reuse one of your current Drupal site's design and style configuration across your other hundreds of websites?
What if you could sync templates, components, brand styles across your global network of sites... faster and easier than ever before?
Well, Acquia Cohesion stores that kind of power. You just need to... unlock it and use it to your advantage.
The END!
These are the key benefits that you can reap from using Acquia Cohesion within your organization.
Do you find them strong enough to choose this particular website builder?
Image by Chris Wolf from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 14'2019
What Will Be the Chatbot Trends in 2020? From Enterprise Chatbots to... Emotionally Intelligent Bots
How will the chatbot and conversational agents market look like next year? Which are those high-impact chatbot trends in 2020 to expect and to prepare for?
Trends to adjust your customer experience strategy to...
And one thing is for sure: there's no way back...
You either standardize and invest in AI-powered chatbot development and implementation or you're... left behind.
Because experts anticipate that by 2020 approx. 85% of the interactions that customers engage in with businesses will be chatbot-intermediated.
And because the now improved AI-based language capabilities are already paving the way to more sophisticated chatbot solutions for:
user support
customer service
information management
In short: there's no other way but... the “bot way”.
So, what will be the hottest trends of 2020 for chatbot (and associated technologies) development? Keep on reading...
1. Voice-Based Bots
Quote source: Big Data Made Simple
Are you prepared for the... rise of voice?
For a great customer experience will be a great voice experience in 2020...
Get ready to start using voice as the key medium for helping your customers:
find their way on your website/mobile app
find the product/identify the services they need
place an order
check their... bank balance
Voice will become a too important medium to explore and to “exploit” in order to attract new customers and retain your current ones. To send out your updates, deals, and offers...
In other words: you should grant talking bots a central place in your customer experience strategy by 2020.
Note: do not take talking bots or conversational interfaces for merely assisting chatbots, though.
With:
voice language processing, speech recognition and AI technologies getting more and more advanced
skyrocketing consumer adoption of voice-enabled devices
… voice-activated chatbots will be one of the rising trends next year. Your customers will be uttering their queries instead of typing them on your site/app:
Will they be getting a helpful reply or... just the echo of their voices?
2. Enterprise Chatbots: One of the Biggest Chatbot Trends in 2020
Expect to witness conversational platforms take over... the workplaces.
This is going to be another huge trend in chatbot development in 2020. And it's pretty... predictable if you come to think of it:
Agile teams are on a constant quest for ways that could make their collaboration in the workplace more efficient.
Using just a verbal request for accessing a file or triggering a software tool — that would otherwise call for an X-step process — is, indeed, efficiency at its best. And convenience...
Is your team ready to rival these future teams who'll be taking full advantage of business chatbots next year?
Keep in mind: faster and better will be the best 2 words to describe the workflows of the future. So, you might want to consider welcoming enterprise chatbots into your workplace.
3. AI-Powered Chatbots
The future of chatbots is... AI-driven.
Chatbots will generate better customer insights by analyzing past and current data. And so, they'll feature more robust capabilities for identifying customers' preferences and behavioral patterns and for anticipating their future needs.
Now, what organizations wouldn't want to leverage that kind of capabilities to power their own customer experiences with, right?
4. Emotionally Intelligent Bots
IMAGE Image by Lola Kno from Pixabay
Another one of those high-impact chatbot trends in 2020 that you should prepare for.
For we're about to witness some major developments in the field of emotional AI (or emotion-detecting AI, if you wish):
Chatbots will become... artificially empathetic. Meaning that they will be able to properly respond to human emotions, even if they can't replicate the processes behind those emotions.
They will still be able to... mimic the result of those processes.
Hard to imagine it? Well, you'd better imagine and embrace this vision, for in 2020 chatbots will do more than (just) recognize speech: they will detect tone and emotion, as well.
Now, just think about leveraging the power of emotion detection AI in your own customer service department...
The future of chatbots will be dominated by emotional/emotion-recognition/emotionally intelligent/empathetic chatbots — however you prefer to call them.
5. NLP-Based Chatbots
Quote source: Tech Funnel
Lift the language barrier and you'll be rewarded unlimited power to perfect the customer experience that you provide...
Luckily, in 2020 chatbots will be turbocharged with highly improved natural language processing capabilities.
The “usual” obstacles, such as properly identifying a dialect, will be overcome. So, get ready to welcome chatbots capable to interpret your customers' messages with greater accuracy...
6. Automated Call Centers
Put together AI and NLO technology and you get the ideal setting for an automated call center.
Expect visual assistants to become a... “real” presence in the call centers' field in 2020. Sophisticated chatbot solutions will be empowered to assist customers in a human-like manner.
7. “Universal” Chatbots
Multitasking or multifunctional bots will be another one of the hottest chatbot trends in 2020.
Just take this too common use case scenario:
You have a mobile app incorporating multiple services: schedule, alarm, finance manager, bank account. The user will get to interact with one chatbot (or bot persona or “universal” bot) that will trigger the “service-specialized bot(s) that he/she'll want to use.
Imagine a chatbot acting as an interface for multiple departmentalized agent bots...
The END!
These are the 7 chatbot design trends to expect and to prepare for if you want to deliver the best customer experiences in 2020.
Which of them best fits your business needs?
Let us know and we're ready to turn it into a chatbot that fits perfectly into your company's customer experience strategy.
Main image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 10'2019
Chatbots, wearable apps, immersive apps, progressive web apps, conversational apps... It's a fact: applications as we know them are growing into... multiexperience apps. So you should consider powering your own app infrastructure with a multiexperience development platform.
But first, you may want to reflect on the limitations of your current app development platform: it supports web and mobile applications only...
By comparison, a MXDP would adjust the digital user experiences that you create to a multitude of interaction modalities — touch, gesture, voice — and devices: web browsers, smartwatches, smartphones, voice-driven devices...
And it's complete experiences that users expect these days...
1. But First: What Is a “Multiexperience” in the Digital Realm?
The term “multiexperience” incorporates:
all the different ways users interact with a brand (touch, audio, gesture)
the multitude of physical devices delivering the user experiences resulting from those interactions
Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash
“And what is multiexperience development” you might further ask yourself.
Take it as the process where, using a plethora of different technologies, you create multiple fit-for-purpose applications. Apps perfectly tailored to suit different touchpoint-specific modalities (voice, audio, gesture...).
2. Multiexperience Development: Future-Proof Your App Development
According to Gartner Inc's research, organizations face an increasing challenge to create digital user experiences that go beyond those delivered through web and mobile apps.
For data is becoming extremely accessible and being “consumed” in an overwhelming no. of ways: hands-free, mobile, voice, etc. While convenience and personalization are now the key elements of great user experience...
So, you should consider switching from mobile-focused app development to a multiexperience (app) development strategy.
You should consider future-proofing your applications by “injecting” them with multi experiences.
From wearable apps to conversational apps (chatbots and voice assistants), to progressive web apps, and immersive apps... there's a wide range of apps of the future that incorporate and deliver multiple experiences.
But how could you possibly develop apps perfectly adjusted to each channel, each user interaction modality? Apps adapted to the given customer contexts...
You opt for an all-technologies-in-one multiexperience development platform...
"What are they more precisely?" Keep on reading...
3. MXDPs: What Are They? How Are They Different from MAPDs?
A multiexperience development platform is... the mobile app development platform of the future. It enables you to develop one app and then deploy it across a whole variety of devices and platforms.
From AR to wearable, to chat and voices, an MXDP speeds up the development of a plethora of targeted, seamless and highly scalable digital user experiences...
4. Why Shift to a Multiexperience Development Platform? 4 Reasons
Now, let's talk... clear benefits. Are they strong enough so you take the leap from your already familiar mobile app development platform?
Well, judge for yourself. Here are the 4 strongest reasons to move to an MXDP:
4.1. It Speeds Up the Deployment Process
How long does it take you now to deploy an app to Amazon Web Services or to any other cloud services provider?
Now, imagine sending your data straight to your AWS account...
Moreover, when using a multiexperience development platorm you get a full-distributed environment. And that can only translate into better control over your own deployment.
Add this convenience, as well, to the whole cloud-based deployment process and... try to anticipate how much time you'd save.
4.2. It Increases Operational Efficiency Within Your Organization
Faster day-to-day operations...
How does an MXDP help you achieve this goal? It's quite obvious:
A central, interconnected system incorporates and thus streamlines all your internal processes.
As opposed to struggling to orchestrate a heavy network of various different programs, one for each type of day-to-day internal task.
4.3. It Cuts Down Time to Market for Your App
And there are 2 main “culprits” behind this benefit of using a multiexperience development platform:
reusable code
accelerated design processes
Furthermore, if you release faster, you get user feedback faster so... you can apply the needed improvements... faster.
4.4. It Removes the Security Risk of Shadow IT
Have you ever tried to count the apps, IT systems, devices, services, and infrastructure that are being used across your organization? Is it even possible to keep track of them all?
Well, that's one of the strongest benefits of using an MXDP: you get a bird's eye view over your software asset.
This way, you can remove the risk that shadow IT poses.
The END!
Quite curious now: are all these predictions regarding the multi-experiences apps and reasons for switching to an MXDP strong enough for you to... take the leap?
Main Image by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Adriana Cacoveanu / Oct 03'2019
About to migrate your website from... Drupal 7 to Drupal 8? Or maybe from an external data source to Drupal 8? The good news is that Drupal Migrate API, the migration system in Drupal 8, is extremely powerful and conveniently flexible.
The "trick" is that you should be familiar with all its robust features, hidden gotchas and planning steps to take.
But, fear not: we've got you covered.
Here's a quick-start guide to migrating in Drupal 8, which covers both Drupal-to-Drupal and external data store-to Drupal migration scenarios.
1. But First: What Is Drupal Migrate API?
It's Drupal's robust migration system that enables you to pull data from various sources and to "inject" them into... Drupal (duh).
And the entire framework is made mostly of... migration plugins:
source plugins
process plugins
destination plugins
It's these migration plugins that are responsible for extracting, transforming and fitting data into the Drupal 8 destination website.
2. A System Designed to Pull Content to Drupal from... Any Source
One of the Drupal Migrate API's most powerful features is extracting content from... pretty much anywhere:
XML
previous versions of Drupal
MariaDB, MySQL
JSON
CSV
other platforms (e.g. WordPress)
The overly simplified Drupal 8 migration process would look something like this:
connect the Drupal Migration API system to your external datastore
write your custom migration paths
transform the source data into a suitable format to fit perfectly into the content types and fields in your destination Drupal website
3. Consider Creating Your Own Custom Source Plugin
Is there no way to pull content from your source? Then you'll need to write your custom source plugin to map the extracted data to its destination fields.
A plugin that suits your own migration scenario to the slightest detail.
For instance, mapping the titles and subtitles of the... blog posts on your current WordPress website to the article node type's titles and subtitle fields in your Drupal 8 destination website.
IMAGE Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay
You'll need to define the specific fields in your source data to the Drupal 8 Migrate API so that it should perform a proper mapping.
4. Process Plugins: The Key Elements in the Drupal 8 Migration Process
They play a critical role in any Drupal 8 migration, being responsible for converting the source data into the appropriate format.
Here are just a few examples of process plugins "in action" during the migration process:
they import data behind HTTP authentication
they parse images from text
Image source: Drupal.org
5. The Migration System Handles Everything... "The Drupal Way"
The unparalleled flexibility of the Drupal Migrate API resides in its way of handling each operation... the Drupal way.
It's "smart" enough to automatically import and validate the source data into the right fields of the destination site. It's designed to "understand" how to adjust the imported data to the various fields, entities, and configurations specific to your Drupal 8 destination website.
In short: the Drupal 8 migrate system makes it easy for you to handle all migration operations the... "Drupal way".
6. Drupal 8 Migration Modules that Extend the System's Functionality
Now, let's say that, although extremely powerful, the Drupal Migrate API framework doesn't meet all your functionality requirements. You can always enhance its flexibility with migration modules that serve your particular migration needs.
Here are just 3 examples:
Migrate Plus
It adds extra features to the framework such as an URL source plugin that makes it possible for you to pull data from XML, Soap, and JSON file formats.
Migrate Tools
The module provides tools for various running and managing migration operations. Here are just some of the Drush commands triggering such operations:
migrate-import – it will run a migration.
migrate-status – it will display all migrations and their status
migrate-rollback – it will roll back a migration
Migrate Source CSV
It enables you to import CSV files to your Drupal 8 destination website.
Migrate Spreadsheet
It makes it possible to extract data from spreadsheet files...
7. External Data Source to-Drupal Migration: A 4-Step Guide
Now, let's talk facts.
Or, better said: the essential steps to take for migrating your content from an external source to Drupal 8.
first, enable the Drupal 8 Migrate module
next, install both Migrate Tools and Migrate Plus for the Drush migration commands and a whole variety of much-needed extensions and plugins
set up a custom module for your specific migration case
use YAML configuration files for field mapping from the right data source; trigger your process plugins to convert data to the right format
Note: your config files should get stored in “my_migration_module/config/install/“.
8. Drupal-to-Drupal 8 Migration: A 2-Step Guide
If it's a Drupal-to-Drupal migration challenge that you're facing, here's the whole process brought down to its key steps:
run the "migrate-upgrade" command in Drush using the "-configure-only" flag to trigger stub YAML configurations Upgrade Using Drush
copy the resulting YAML files into the config/install directory of your custom module (remember to give them proper names and to edit them)
9. Final Word
The Drupal Migrate API is highly flexible and, therefore, very powerful.
It's designed for a whole variety of migration scenarios, of different levels of complexity: from importing a collection of blog posts to... pulling hundreds of thousands of nodes.
And yet, with great flexibility comes great complexity:
Since every website's user-generated content architecture is different, every Drupal 8 migration is highly website-specific.
With no "one-size-fits-all" type of standards at hand, you're at the same time free and "constrained" to... customize your migration to your specific needs.
Better said: with great flexibility comes... great(er) responsibility.
Main image by wandaquinn from Pixabay
Adriana Cacoveanu / Sep 30'2019