By farriss on

Now that everyone is (hopefully) recovered from Drupalcon Szeged, I wanted to create one more front page post with a roadmap for the portion of the redesign project involving Mark Boulton Design. Mark and Leisa provided insight into their approach to the redesign in their keynote and really built up excitement and enthusiasm for the project. I highly recommend it to anyone even a teensy bit interested in the redesign process. Over the next three months (September 2008 – December 2008), the d.o redesign team will be tackling:

  • User research
  • Revised information architecture
  • Content audit and editing
  • Wireframes
  • Usability testing
  • Brand style guide
  • Finalized design .psd

To be sure, they have a lot of work ahead of them. No worries – they’re totally on it! However, it also should not be underestimated how much work is ahead of us, the community. Again, I’m not worried, but it’s important that everyone is clear that the scope of the work we’ve contracted MBD to do is only the beginning.

The community will be the driving force in the redesign of Drupal.org and the Redesign Group will be the central hub for all interested. Be a part of it.

To make this project successful, the Drupal community will:

  • Participate in the design process
  • Upgrade d.o to Drupal 6
  • Build the theme
  • Architect feature enhancements
  • Conduct testing
  • Launch and maintain d.o

That means we need you!

Step 1 is for you to subscribe to the Redesign Group. There we will be posting each of the deliverables created by MBD for community comment.

Here is the working schedule (e.g. please tune in at these regularly scheduled times!):

  • Friday, September 19th – Sunday, September 21st: initial research and proposed top level IA
  • Friday, September 26th – Sunday, September 28th: branding development
  • Friday, October 3rd – Sunday, October 5th: prototyping round 2
  • Friday, October 24th – Sunday, October 26th: prototyping round 3, branding development round 3, IA strategy, design concepts
  • Friday, October 31st – Sunday, November 2nd: prototyping round 4, branding development round 4, design concepts

All reviews will be posted on Drupal.org redesign plan for the Drupal Association on groups.drupal.org.

In addition to g.d.o posts, I'll be lurking in #drupal.

The redesign is an awesome undertaking. It is ambitious. It will impact all of us. Get involved.:)

Comments

JohnForsythe’s picture

JohnForsythe commented

I absolutely agree that this is an ambitious undertaking, but I'm already impressed. It's exciting to see an actual schedule for this! Especially considering the dates are not far off. I'm really interested to see what the suggestions are for the top level IA.

--
John Forsythe
Need reliable Drupal hosting?

BioALIEN’s picture

BioALIEN commented

Just watched the keynote, great presentation. I like the analogy used!

Thanks for the update, I'll go subscribe to the group. I encourage others to do the same given how close some of these deadlines are.

---
Dee
iScene.eu :: UK Drupal Consultancy

Amix’s picture

Amix commented

I'm really excited about the redesign, can't wait!
__________________________________________________________________________________
www.DrupalBased.com - Showcasing Drupal Powered Sites.

lauggh’s picture

lauggh commented

I'm excited! and want to be involved. Alas, the link to join the group is not working...

beeradb’s picture

beeradb commented

Interesting. Looks like the url has changed, the group that was originally linked is http://groups.drupal.org/drupalorg-redesign-plan-drupal-association

beeradb’s picture

beeradb commented

I'm excited to see this right around the corner. I'm also impressed with how aggressive the schedule is. It really highlights the need for the community to step up and see this through.

lut4rp’s picture

lut4rp commented

Finally! Yaay!!

tjholowaychuk’s picture

tjholowaychuk commented

Really curious to see the new UI !! hope we get some sneak peeks to give some feedback
____________________________________________________
Tj Holowaychuk

Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Victoria British Columbia Web Design School

Noddy’s picture

Noddy commented

...please, please, never ever use "Bitstream Vera Sans" for an official Drupal page again. Thanks a million!

JohnForsythe’s picture

JohnForsythe commented

Let me second this suggestion! :D

I had to uninstall that font because it made Drupal.org unreadable.

barthaedens’s picture

barthaedens commented

Hope to see something soon!

Drupal Dune

fpedraza’s picture

fpedraza commented

This will be awesome!

I'm not sure if my suggestion is out of scope, but I thing it would be very useful to have a filter by contry in some categories like jobs and paid services.

portait’s picture

portait commented

Will this theme be available for everybody to download or is exclusively for drupal.org?

Amazon’s picture

Amazon commented

The theme and style guide will be exclusive to Drupal.org.

Kieran Lal
Board member of the Drupal association
Coordinator of the security team
Coordinator of the test driven development team

Kieran Lal

Chris Charlton’s picture

Chris Charlton
Primary language English
Location Los Angeles
commented

XTND.US can help keep up our Adobe software color/swatch sets updated with released styled guide docs. I know it's not a huge deal but it's one of those little things that can help some. :)

Chris Charlton
Manager
LA Drupal		 Drupal Author
Published since 2007
ascetic’s picture

ascetic commented

this is the news I've always waiting for since last year. Yeah drupal really needs a new design! :D

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itechstyle IT needs some styles

rasmusskjoldan’s picture

rasmusskjoldan commented

Hi Drupal-guys,

For your information we're similarly in the process of redesigning and implementing all the official TYPO3 sites at the moment, too. It's inspiring to see your work on Drupal - and good luck with it!

For inspiration:
http://typo3.org/teams/typo3org/
http://buzz.typo3.org/teams/typo3org/
http://vimeo.com/2163862

Best,
Rasmus Skjoldan

webavant’s picture

webavant commented

The video looks really cool! The positive discussion between the CMS communities is awesome! I've used TYPO3 a little bit and I liked it a lot. It's exciting to see you posting here.

dbeall’s picture

dbeall commented

After reading all the comments, I have to agree with the header overtaking the page, but it does look good. On a 800x600 res. takes half the page. The left margin is 0 on my screen till i stretch it out and see that the theme is centered. Where is the alien? I miss him. I am sure it will still be cool when all is decided. It is obvious that there has been a lot of work and thought put into it so far..
One thing i know, you can never please everyone...job well done.