Summary: A user-friendly conversation-based Drupal customization wizard.
Description: I was inspired by the character creation process in the Ultima games wherein it asks you a series of questions and generates your character sheet based on your responses (with the opportunity to tweak the numbers afterward). It might also be addressing the usability issues @Itangalo is hoping to resolve with a module “app store”. I want to create a system that takes the user through a series of simple questions and then generates a single download of a preconfigured Drupal installation.
The functional niche sits in a space between Installation Profiles, Features and drush; it’s similar to each but with a very different audience. It's different from Features and drush in that this lets users find and select functionality without having to know which feature or module does it and the differences between the various options. It's different from Install Profiles in that it allows users to select the functionality they want and the way they want it.
Example questions include:
“Would you like users to be able to upload photos?”
- Yes
- No
If more than one module fulfills this function, then answers would be qualified with distinguishing criteria. Example:
“Do you want content editors to have a tools that allow them to visually layout the content as they write?”
- Yes, I want my editors to have lots of tools.
- Yes, but I want to keep things pretty simple.
- No, simple text boxes will do fine.
Answers can be visual examples or thumbnails of screenshots, for questions like this:
“How would you like the photos to be displayed?”
The questions should be structured in a tree – with branches depending on the previous answers:
“Do you want users to be able to join groups to aggregate or share content?”
If the user answered yes, then:
“Do you want to users to be able to create groups?”
The whole question/answer tree will be community editable project – so that feature and module maintainers can ensure their projects are included fairly represented and use-case experts can participate. A significant project deliverable would be a clearly set of guidelines to ensure accessibility and usability of the service to end-users. The question tree will be easily restructured to balance the breadth/depth of the questions. The goal is to keep the third quartile in the distribution of users at no more than twenty questions per configuration.
One possible avenue to consider is different tiers of complexity, and hence categorized user-experiences. E.g. “New To Drupal”, “Drupal Admin”, “Drupal Developer”. The upper-tiers can safely presuppose more knowledge on the part of the user and ask more specific questions along the way.
The project adds value to a number of already very useful Drupal projects, including drush and Features. Further, it gives module maintainers a new way to get noticed and more importantly get installs and potentially contributors.
Does this sound like a desirable project? I can follow up with a more detailed breakdown of the planning if there's interest.
Thanks very much for any feedback.