Drupal CMS is designed as an ideal solution for simpler projects, with sensible defaults to reduce complexity and speed up time-to-market for web projects. But it could also offer benefits for larger enterprise projects. Progress made on Experience Builder and Recipes could allow more time and budget for unique, customized business logic, and the performance testing involved has already led to improvements in Drupal core, which improves all Drupal installations.
Drupal CMS represents a massive effort from volunteers all over the world. UX and user-centered design played a key role in product planning and development to ensure we released something users wanted and could easily use.
Planning Drupal CMS
Building and launching Drupal CMS required meticulous planning across multiple disciplines:
- Product strategy
- UX
- Design
- Development
- Community management
Unlike proprietary projects, open-source products rely significantly on contributions from volunteers. One major challenge was defining the project within strict deadlines—just 8 months from announcing Drupal CMS at DrupalCon Portland in May 2024 to its release in January 2025. Successful project definition required executing ideation, goal-setting, user surveys, interviews, and current usage analysis alongside product development.
As the UX Lead for Drupal CMS, I contributed to defining our strategy, which began with a roadmap that prioritized strategic features. The roadmap was informed by various experiences and data analysis, such as the most-used contributed Drupal modules, which are not part of Drupal core. These priorities were assigned to "track leads," who were responsible for defining requirements and leading implementation. Cristina Chumillas (the author of this post) is the UX Lead of Drupal CMS and has helped define the strategy and priorities for the project.
Simultaneously, we validated hypotheses through user surveys and interviews to ensure decisions aligned with real needs. This iterative, collaborative approach enabled an agile process that delivered the first version of Drupal CMS within the deadline. Features will continue to be refined and expanded.
Collaboration between UX and development in Open Source
User-centered design is based on a core premise: products must be developed with the user at the center of all decisions. In an open-source project like Drupal CMS, this involves understanding not just the end users but also the volunteer developers and designers contributing to its creation and maintenance.
UX extends far beyond interface design. It's a cross-functional perspective that integrates into every stage of development. However, Drupal has historically struggled to engage designers due to its reliance on developer-centric tools, such as Git and command lines, which can be daunting for non-technical contributors. These barriers, coupled with system complexity, have limited design contributions and slowed the scaling of new interface development. Even small things can take forever to get fixed.
A classic workflow would have developers begin work after designs are fully tested. However, our tight deadline required developers to begin before the designs were finalized. In areas without new interfaces, like creating content types, developers evaluated existing solutions both within and without Drupal's ecosystem, collaborating with leadership to define suitable approaches.
To guide this work, we used user research and interviews, as well as methodologies like Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) and Critical User Journeys (CUJs). We also mapped user flows to identify needs, frustrations, and goals. These insights guided the creation, definition, and continuous improvement of a product that must not only meet technical requirements but also offer a more intuitive and enjoyable experience.
As a result, iterative processes were adopted for many functionalities, paving the way for significant improvements in the coming months. User testing plans are being developed to validate usability with real users, identifying issues and adjustment opportunities. Drupal CMS will evolve continuously to meet user needs while maintaining high quality.
Challenges in a global, volunteer-driven project
The voluntary nature of open-source projects presents unique challenges. Contributors—both individuals and companies—participate based on availability, making it harder to hit strict deadlines and maintain continuity. A globally distributed community makes collaboration even more challenging. Effective communication and clear documentation are critical to facilitating contributions and maintaining quality.
While the Drupal community has decades of experience onboarding developers into developer-focused roles, onboarding contributors into UX roles presents additional hurdles. Significant investment in training and mentorship is required to familiarize new members with tools, processes, and goals. For example, we have devised ways to explain how Drupal works, the differences between the Drupal UI and the front end, and concepts related to basic site-building. This context gives UX professionals the best chance to have a lasting impact.
And what happens as these contributors grow into decision-making roles? Retention is critical to sustaining the evolution of Drupal CMS and fostering long-term innovation. Supporting contributors through every step of the process is as important as the functionality they create.
One of our primary goals is to expand the UX team with UX experts experienced with Drupal who can take on leadership roles and help drive product priorities. Additionally, we aim to establish a stable user testing group to ensure consistent and informed improvements to the product. These efforts are vital for maintaining momentum and ensuring we continue to innovate effectively.
Aiming at the future
The launch of Drupal CMS marks a new chapter for the community. We strongly believe our user-centered design approach is propelling us in the right direction and can become an example of how open-source can address real user needs while remaining competitive and reliable.
Now, we invite you to join us on this journey. Whether you're a designer, researcher, content strategist, or user advocate, your skills can help shape the future of Drupal CMS. Join us on the #drupal-cms-ux-marketing channel on Drupal's Slack, or let us know that you want to help.