Websites & blogs that use Drupal
DRUPAL
OVERVIEW
Drupal is an opensource content management system that allows individuals to manage, organise and publish content on websites, intranet, blogs and other web spaces.(Nelson, 2010, p.1). Drupal is unique in its active and dynamic community that is supported by the incomprehensible flexibility of the software that caters to the content management, design and administration needs of Information Architects, designers and administrators.
back to top↑FEATURES
Listed below are just a few of the core features of the Druple CMS:
- Flexible Content that denote customised fields and menus.
- Taxonomy that allows content categorisation, creation of tags and nested terms.
- Tag and taxonomy terms automatically create its own RSS feed.
- Web 2.0 friendly.
- Organisation and finding content through breadcrumbs, menus, and core searching.
- Menus that cultivate hierarchy, quantified by paths.
- Comprehensive global search structure.
- Drupal handles an epitome of pages, blog posts, video, files, polls, images and podcasts.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Drupal has quite a positive influence on Information Architecture because of its flexible nature. Drupal provides software that comprehensibly supports that organisation, labeling, searching, and navigation of websites, intranets and other online sources which are four important components that make up the core of Information Architecture.
LABELING
Drupal has a module titled Views that covers a range of areas including labeling. Views creates taxonomys in the form of labels, additional to page creation, displaying collections of images, and other content. Views is flexible and is able to be manipulated, this is done in such a manner that coding is not required.
ORGANISATION
Organisation systems are an essential part of Information Architecture because it helps make the content easier to navigate. There are many tools that are part of Drupal that are used for organisation, such as the complex Category module that organises static and dynamic content, and structure for hierarchies and sub-hierarchies. This tool is more suited to the more experienced Information Architect, the novice can access the Content construction kit (CCK) as an alternative. CCK allows the customisation of fields to content using a web interface, although much of this now has been merged into the module, Druple Core.
SEARCHING
Drupal has many Search Modules that Information Architects would benefit from when needing to chose the right option for web spaces. One module is simply called Search and this system allows searching for specific content. This module incorporates content and advanced search, alternatively for more complex searches other than keywords installing of other programs are needed. A unique feature to the Search Module is the navigation menu that can be enabled if both the search and menu module are enabled along with being able to chamge the title Search whatever suits your purpose.
NAVIGATION
Navigation and Organisation are compatible because being able to navigate a site is dependent on how organised it is. As with Organisation, the main navigational feature of Drupal is through the Category module which has the ability for the Information Architect to present the navigational components on their web pages. Navigation is not heavily featured on Druple.
back to top↑EVALUATION
Overall Drupal appears to be a CMS tool that not only meets the needs of an Information Architect but flexible in all it offers, which enables the Information Architects, designers and administrators room to add a unique quality to their web based source. The simplicity in the Views system that is not dependant on coding means that even the most inexperienced professional or individual is able to actively use Drupal.
The sheer amount of pages that need to be read before downloading, implementing and fully understanding Drupal, are somewhat overwhelming and do require a technical background to understand them. Another pitfill is the less adequete results when looking for information on how Drupal supports and implements navigation. There was a sense of going around in circles before reaching some minor semblence of a desitnation. This makes me query wether the navigation is tied in with the organisation modules, which is relevant considering that organisation and navigation are so closely linked.
Drupal Views module is useful for Information Architects because it handles not only the labeling for web soures but additionally the organisation of pages and content.
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