Agentic AI is a new area of Drupal development. Like all software developments, it can be made more useful and usable through UX research. Working with Drupal AI expert Jamie Abrahams, I conducted research with University staff to learn about the UX of AI Assistants so I could contribute to making them even better.

Following a successful pilot test, I conducted more UX research of Drupal AI Assistants with University staff. I learned what staff thought and expected from the Assistants and how they interacted with them. Working iteratively, I was able to feed back what I learned between testing rounds to drive continued user-centred improvements.

AI Assistants are an exciting new Drupal development, intended to support and empower content creators and site editors to achieve their tasks. Having designed a UX research approach to test Drupal AI Assistants with University staff, I conducted a pilot test to try out the set-up: planned scenario, tasks and identified UX success indicators.

In September 2024 Drupal unveiled AI Assistants as part of its new Drupal CMS product. Recognising the potential of this new feature to help and support University staff with web-related tasks, I collaborated with Jamie Abrahams, Drupal AI expert to learn how the Assistants worked and to design a UX research approach to test them. 

I was lucky to be invited to speak at DrupalCon, the annual European conference for Drupal. I delivered several sessions and attended others to learn more about advancements in Drupal.

In March 2024, the annual UCISA leadership conference came to Edinburgh. I pitched a talk about UX and change management which was accepted, giving me the opportunity to attend the three-day event.

Drupal is the Content Management System behind EdWeb 2 (and also EdWeb). As a Drupal contributor I’ve been working with others in the community to help improve the clarity of the language used within Drupal, to make it more accessible and inclusive. 

Between September and November 2023, we heard from web publishers around the University about their news and events content. This post summarises some of the themes that came out of this research.

Since presenting at DrupalCon in 2022 I have been contributing to Drupal’s marketing and usability initiatives. Returning to speak at DrupalCon 2023, I wanted to share what I’d learned, do some hands-on activities and encourage the community to apply UX principles to all things Drupal.

Drupal is the content management system underpinning EdWeb (and EdWeb2). It’s open source meaning it’s built by the community for the community. I’ve been contributing my UX expertise to Drupal since speaking at DrupalCon in 2022.