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“Picking a module is a lot like picking a new recipe. Both freeing and really frustrating.”

Matt, 32
Chicago, United States

Goal: To find the most accurate information and get to know the right people to build websites more efficiently.

    Behaviors

  • More than 80% of his day-to-day work is Drupal related
  • Tries to find answers on his own first, then turns to someone else
  • Always starts with Google, often times ends up finding answers at StackExchange
  • Has direct access to an Expert who can answer his questions
  • While working on a Drupal project is constantly in the issue queues and on module pages
  • Occasionally comments on issues, but never submits or reviews patches
  • Attends some kind of Drupal event locally or nationally
  • Has never written a custom module
  • Teaches other non-technical people about Drupal “to make it less scary”
  • Whether he writes code is dependent upon job role

    Motivations

  • Wants to find the most accurate and reliable resources from the most credible people
  • Wants to build his personal network in the community
  • Wants to gain credibility in the community
  • Wants to remain connected to the community to always know what is coming next for the project
  • Wants to support open source projects

    Attitudes

  • Values the Drupal community, thinks it’s a big benefit of the project
  • Finds people in the Drupal community to be friendly and willing to help
  • Sees personal network that people have in the community as a huge asset
  • Likes that he can assemble a Drupal website rapidly
  • Thinks it’s both a benefit and a drawback that Drupal
  • can be used for such diverse use cases
  • Likes the standards focus of Drupal

    Frustrations

  • Finds it hard to decide which module to use for a specific task
  • Thinks that Drupal has a steep learning curve, it took him a while to learn
  • Finds it challenging to figure out the health of the module/theme from the info on the project page
  • Has not enough name recognition in the community to get answers to his questions fast enough
  • Frustrated by Drupal.org search being ineffective
  • Is frustrated that in an issue queue, correct answer to a problem is not easily identifiable
  • Thinks Drupal.org has poor information architecture and visual design

    Tech Use

  • Uses Google Drive and Docs primarily for content production
  • Uses Macbook
  • Uses issue tracking tools, differs based on role: e.g. proprietary, Jira, Basecamp, etc.

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Photo credits: Toshihiro Gamo