Thoughts on Drupal Starshot #2: A New Direction for Drupal

“Remember that in the Driesnote, more than half the people in the room had been using Drupal for more than a decade. We need to attract new people to the community, to ensure we will continue to have active and engaged contributors 5, 10, and 15 years from now.”

For Tim Hestenes Lehnen, the Chief Technology Officer at Drupal Association, Drupal Starshot is the culmination of the new direction of the Drupal project that has been following for the last several years. Tim reflects on the evolution of Drupal since the launch of Drupal 8 in 2016, noting that while it became modern, powerful, and enterprise-scale, it also became less accessible to hobbyist users and casual evaluators. Drupal Starshot isn’t so much a change of direction as it is a way to make all of the deep technical power reachable for less technical users.

Murray observes that Starshot has the potential to redefine the Drupal user experience by integrating systems like Experience Builder, Project Browser, Recipes, and Automatic Updates. These additions aim to simplify site creation and maintenance, making Drupal more accessible to new users and re-engaging those who may have left due to past complexities. He anticipates a resurgence in “site builder” based sites, where users can enjoy the value of a no-code approach.Nicolas is convinced that this type of prepackaged product has a positive impact on user adoption. It allows for a quick grasp of concepts and guides the user through their journey while providing advanced tools tailored to their needs.

She also notes that once Drupal Starshot’s vision is realized, the platform will be well-positioned to attract a new wave of users, including those who have never used Drupal before and those who may have moved away from it in the past due to concerns over complexity, usability, and maintenance.

He finds Starshot incredibly promising but also thinks there are still a number of specific and important issues around user journeys, UX, and naming/categorization (and doing all these difficult things across languages and cultures) that need to be figured out.shares Martin.

154 days left until the end of 2024!

Today, Kristen Pol, Chair, CivicTheme Design System Steering Committee and Open Source Contribution Lead at Salsa Digital, headed a Drupal Starshot session, designed to provide updates on the Starshot Demo Design System and to help the community find the best ways to contribute.”I am eager to see what Drupal Starshot will offer in its final version.” – Nicolas Loye

“This will improve Drupal’s image and should allow it to compete with solutions like WordPress Elementor, for example. For new users, it should guarantee a minimal user experience, and for dedicated users, it will be a new tool to make available and possibly even uncover unsuspected capabilities of Drupal.”

adds Tim.Martin Anderson-Clutz, Senior Solutions Engineer at Acquia is excited about the Drupal Starshot Initiative and has a list of reasons. He also suggests that Gábor Hojtsy did a nice job documenting many of the community’s thoughts on Starshot in his blog post.

Kristen describes Starshot as a highly ambitious project that aims to position Drupal competitively against platforms like Wix and WordPress by offering easy updates and a vast library of recipes for quickly adding features. She emphasizes that Drupal’s strength lies in its robust and flexible core architecture, which supports structured data, content reuse, fine-grained access controls, and decoupled applications.

Nicolas is particularly intrigued by the concept of Recipes, likening it to the Make files from Drupal 7 that simplified installation. He believes that Recipes, unlike traditional installation profiles, could be used on existing sites, potentially standardizing contribution norms within the community. This approach is expected to set a minimum quality level for user experience in content contribution.

Firstly, the Drupal leadership team has taken a proactive approach to improving the site builder and end-user experience by providing a vision the whole community can get behind. Secondly, this unifying vision has led the community to collaborate like never before – working together for a strong end goal. The community has galvanized to improve Drupal and its standing relative to other CMSs.

“I really think that Starshot puts the power of Drupal back in the hands of ambitious site builders. Drupal core by itself is so much of a blank slate that the field of possibilities is overwhelming. Having an opinionated platform to get started with Drupal will really accelerate the build process and show off the best of what Drupal can do.””Both new and existing Drupal users will reap Starshot’s benefits of simple component-based page building, easier maintenance, and a library of ready-made recipes to rapidly solve real world use cases.” – Kristen PolNicolas Loye, Chief Technology Officer at Smile, also adds to this two-fold enthusiasm about Starshot. Primarily because he believes that better user adoption of Drupal depends on improved ergonomics, greater ease, and more flexibility in content contribution. On a personal level, he has been using installation profiles to preconfigure the user experience for years; in fact, we presented Sobki, Smile’s installation profile, at DrupalCon Lille last year.He concludes his thoughts on Starshot by expressing interest in its development. He anticipates that common patterns for types and fields will emerge, and he believes that a strong, flexible foundation will enhance the compatibility of community-contributed code. 

Murray Woodman, Managing Director of Morpht, applauds Drupal Starshot for two main reasons.

Martin highlights two additional reasons for his excitement about Drupal Starshot. First, he notes that it could reduce the duplication of effort across the Drupal community, as many agencies currently maintain their own installation profiles for new projects. Developers can collaborate on common features by bringing these efforts together under Starshot, potentially accelerating innovation and improvements. Second, Martin believes Starshot will lower the barriers to entry for new users, making Drupal more accessible to those starting with small businesses or nonprofit sites, much like how many long-time community members, including himself, began their journey with Drupal.

As the initiative progresses, the community’s feedback and insights are crucial in refining and optimizing the final product, which promises to enhance the usability and appeal of Drupal for a broader audience. The campaign has sparked a vibrant conversation, reflecting the community’s engagement and investment in the platform’s evolution.

This article is the second part of our series and is a compilation of thoughts of several Drupal experts about the Starshot initiative. The first article of the series featured Gabor Hojtsy and Pamela Barone, members of the Drupal Starshot Leadership Team. Starshot Initiative combines Drupal core with popular features from the contributed project ecosystem, aiming to simplify website creation for users of all experience levels. This initiative builds on recent developments like Automatic Updates, Recipes, and Project Browser, providing a more accessible and user-friendly platform.I’ve been in the Drupal community for over 20 years, and I’ve never been this excited about Drupal! Not only are we solving critical page and site-building UX issues that have caused Drupal to fall behind in the marketplace, but it has been amazing to watch the Drupal community come together in such a spectacular way. I’ve never seen so much buzz, excitement, and participation!

As announced by the founder and lead of Drupal, Dries Buytaert at DrupalCon Portland 2024, an initial version of Drupal Starshot will be available before the end of 2024. Since the announcement, The DropTimes has actively engaged the Drupal community through its social media campaign, “Thoughts on Starshot” gathering a wealth of perspectives on Starshot’s potential impact. This campaign underscores the excitement, curiosity, and speculations within the community, highlighting the anticipation for how Starshot will shape the future of Drupal.

remarks Nicolas. Would you like to participate in Starshot and contribute to Drupal’s future? The team is currently seeking track leads to drive key components of the project, from creating feature-rich Recipes to enhancing the Drupal installer and developing a trial experience. Whether you’re a developer, designer, UX expert, marketer, or site builder, your expertise is valuable to the success of this initiative. However, don’t wait—tomorrow, July 31^st, is the deadline to apply for a track lead position. Find more details here.

Martin also shared his speculation about the challenges in the time frame. “There are a lot of moving parts, so building even an MVP in the target time frame really will require ‘the best of all of us’,” concludes Martin.

Starshot is a way to coalesce and drive synergy around a number of initiatives the community has already been working on, in some cases for years.That said, I am seeing a raft of incredibly smart and talented people stepping up to get involved, and there is already an appetite to make these decisions from the user’s perspective (with actual user input) so all of that is immensely encouraging.The “Thoughts on Starshot” campaign has revealed widespread excitement within the Drupal community, highlighting the potential of the Starshot initiative to transform the Drupal platform. With contributions from seasoned community members like Kristen Pol, Murray Woodman, Nicolas Loye, Martin Anderson-Clutz, and Tim Hestenes Lehnen, the consensus is clear: Drupal Starshot promises to streamline the user experience, foster greater collaboration, and lower the barriers to entry, making Drupal more accessible to a wider audience.