• Read more about Why Drupal? Secure, Scalable, Social! (Part 2 of 3)

With Drupal, both developers and non-developer admins can deploy a long list of robust functionalities right out-of-the-box. This powerful, open source CMS allows for easy content creation and editing, as well as seamless integration with numerous 3rd party platforms (including social media and e-commerce). Drupal is highly scalable, cloud-friendly, and highly intuitive. Did we mention it’s effectively-priced, too?

In our “Why Drupal?” 3-part series, we’ll highlight some features (many which you know you need, and others which you may not have even considered) that make Drupal a clear front-runner in the CMS market.

For a personalized synopsis of how your organization’s site can be built on or migrated to Drupal with amazing results, grab a free ticket to Drupal GovCon 2015 where you can speak with one of our site migration experts for free, or contact us through our website.

_______________________________

SEO + Social Networking:

Unlike other content software, Drupal does not get in the way of SEO or social networking. By using a properly built theme--as well as add-on modules--a highly optimized site can be created. There are even modules that will provide an SEO checklist and monitor the site’s SEO performance. The Metatags module ensures continued support for the latest metatags used by various social networking sites when content is shared from Drupal.

E-Commerce:

Drupal Commerce is an excellent e-commerce platform that uses Drupal’s native information architecture features. One can easily add desired fields to products and orders without having to write any code. There are numerous add-on modules for reports, order workflows, shipping calculators, payment processors, and other commerce-based tools.

Search:

Drupal’s native search functionality is strong. There is also a Search API module that allows site managers to build custom search widgets with layered search capabilities. Additionally, there are modules that enable integration of third-party search engines, such as Google Search Appliance and Apache Solr.

Third-Party Integration:

Drupal not only allows for the integration of search engines, but a long list of other tools, too. The Feeds module allows Drupal to consume structured data (for example, .xml and .json) from various sources. The consumed content can be manipulated and presented just like content that is created natively in Drupal. Content can also be exposed through a RESTful API using the Services module. The format and structure of the exposed content is also highly configurable, and requires no programming.

Taxonomy + Tagging:

Taxonomy and tagging are core Drupal features. The ability to create categories (dubbed “vocabularies” by Drupal) and then create unlimited terms within that vocabulary is connected to the platform’s robust information architecture. To make taxonomy even easier, Drupal even provides a drag-n-drop interface to organize the terms into a hierarchy, if needed. Content managers are able to use vocabularies for various functions, eliminating the need to replicate efforts. For example, a vocabulary could be used for both content tagging and making complex drop-down lists and user groups, or even building a menu structure.

Workflows:

There are a few contributor modules that provide workflow functionality in Drupal. They all provide common functionality along with unique features for various use cases. The most popular options are Maestro and Workbench.

Security:

Drupal has a dedicated security team that is very quick to react to vulnerabilities that are found in Drupal core as well as contributed modules. If a security issue is found within a contrib module, the security team will notify the module maintainer and give them a deadline to fix it. If the module does not get fixed by the deadline, the security team will issue an advisory recommending that the module be disabled, and will also classify the module as unsupported.

Cloud, Scalability, and Performance:

Drupal’s architecture makes it incredibly “cloud friendly”. It is easy to create a Drupal site that can be setup to auto-scale (i.e., add more servers during peak traffic times and shut them down when not needed). Some modules integrate with cloud storage such as S3. Further, Drupal is built for caching. By default, Drupal caches content in the database for quick delivery; support for other caching mechanisms (such as Memcache) can be added to make the caching lightning fast.

Multi-Site Deployments:

Drupal is architected to allow for multiple sites to share a single codebase. This feature is built-in and, unlike Wordpress, it does not require any cumbersome add-ons. This can be a tremendous benefit for customers who want to have multiple sites that share similar functionality. There are few--if any--limitations to a multi-site configuration. Each site can have its own modules and themes that are completely separate from the customer’s other sites.

Want to know other amazing functionalities that Drupal has to offer? Stay tuned for the final installment of our 3-part “Why Drupal?” series!

• Read more about Why Drupal? A Look Into A Leading CMS (Part 1 of 3)

Regardless of industry, staff size, and budget, many of today’s organizations have one thing in common: they’re demanding the best content management systems (CMS) to build their websites on. With requirement lists that can range from 10 to 100 features, an already short list of “best CMS options” shrinks even further once “user-friendly”, “rapidly-deployable”, and “cost-effective” are added to the list.

There is one CMS, though, that not only meets the core criteria of ease-of-use, reasonable pricing, and flexibility, but a long list of other valuable features, too: Drupal.

With Drupal, both developers and non-developer admins can deploy a long list of robust functionalities right out-of-the-box. This powerful, open source CMS allows for easy content creation and editing, as well as seamless integration with numerous 3rd party platforms (including social media and e-commerce). Drupal is highly scalable, cloud-friendly, and highly intuitive. Did we mention it’s effectively-priced, too?

In our “Why Drupal?” 3-part series, we’ll highlight some features (many which you know you need, and others which you may not have even considered) that make Drupal a clear front-runner in the CMS market.

For a personalized synopsis of how your organization’s site can be built on or migrated to Drupal with amazing results, grab a free ticket to Drupal GovCon 2015 where you can speak with one of our site migration experts for free, or contact us through our website.

______

Drupal in Numbers (as of June 2014):

• Market Presence: 1.5M sites
• Global Adoption: 228 countries
• Capabilities: 22,000 modules
• Community: 80,000 members on Drupal.org
• Development: 20,000 developers

Open Source:

The benefits of open source are exhaustively detailed all over the Internet. Drupal itself has been open source since its initial release on January 15, 2000. With thousands of developers reviewing and contributing code for over 15 years, Drupal has become exceptionally mature. All of the features and functionality outlined in our “Why Drupal?” series can be implemented with open source code.

Startup Velocity:

Similar to Wordpress, deploying a Drupal site takes mere minutes, and the amount of out-of-the-box functionality is substantial. While there is a bit of a learning curve with Drupal, an experienced admin (non-developer) can have a small site deployed in a matter of days.

Information Architecture:

The ability to create new content types and add unlimited fields of varying types is a core Drupal feature. Imagine you are building a site that hosts events, and an “Event” content type is needed as part of the information architecture. With out-of-the-box Drupal, you can create the content type with just a few clicks--absolutely no programming required. Further, you can add additional fields such as event title, event date, event location, keynote speaker. Each field has a structured data type, which means they aren’t just open text fields. Through contrib modules, there are dozens of other field types such as mailing address, email address, drop-down list, and more. Worth repeating: no programming is required to create new content types, nor to create new fields and add them to a new content type.

Asset Management:

There are a number of asset management libraries for Drupal, ensuring that users have the flexibility to choose the one that best suits their needs. One newer and increasingly popular asset management module in particular is SCALD (https://www.drupal.org/project/scald). One of the most important differences between SCALD and other asset management tools is that assets are not just files. In fact, files are just one type of asset. Other asset types include YouTube videos, Flickr galleries, tweets, maps, iFrames--even HTML snippets. SCALD also provides a framework for creating new types of assets (called providers). For more information on SCALD, please visit: https://www.drupal.org/node/2101855 and https://www.drupal.org/node/1895554

Curious about the other functionalities Drupal has to offer? Stay tuned for Part 2 of our “Why Drupal?” series!

• Read more about DIGITALiBiz.com: A Responsive Design Refresh

Another day, another product release! DIGITALiBiz has unveiled the latest version of its corporate website--built by Mobomo--and it’s beautiful. For the redesign, we leveraged WordPress, and fully customized a theme to meet DIGITALiBiz’s specific goals. The site is fully responsive, has a beefed up CMS in the back-end which utilizes the Visual Composer page builder plugin, and can support any type of media, including video and photo. Photos, specifically, have taken on an entirely new form, as site 2.0 boasts interactive photo galleries, as well as interactive staff biographies.

In addition to enabling robust, multimedia capabilities, we also strengthened the site’s integration with social media platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), and provided an easy-to-use SEO optimization environment. This site allows DIGITALiBiz to seamlessly engage with clients, partners, and employees, and does so in a manner that enhances their position in search rankings so they can be efficiently found. Strong engagement and optimized search are crucial for any organization, but are of the utmost importance for a business technology solutions company like DIGITALiBiz. Defining and optimizing their SEO program helps them achieve key (project) goals, and we made this a central part of the redesign.

From beginning to end, this fully scalable, responsive site deployment took less than 3 months to launch (just 2.5, to be exact), and we are thrilled with the results. Take a look for yourself! Visit DIGITALiBiz.com to see more, and contact us via https://www.mobomo.com to find out how we can help you deploy a beautiful, responsive site for your organization.

• Read more about Your Sample Wordpress Post

• Read more about Intridea Joins Team Mobomo

Mobomo is pleased to announce that it has acquired Intridea, a DC-based product development consulting firm specializing in Web 2.0 application development.

Over the past several years, Mobomo has been focusing heavily on cutting edge web development to complement its expertise in mobile. Projects such as NASA.gov and USASearch coupled with Mobomo’s background in Ruby on Rails provided the opportunity for Mobomo to flex its web muscles. Adding Intridea’s team, proficiency, and web & mobile app portfolio to Mobomo’s roster demonstrates its commitment to growing its capabilities in web development and technologies, such as AngularJS.

Both teams are excited about the opportunity this acquisition presents. “Marc Garrett and Jürgen Altziebler have built an organization of exceptional talent. We are extremely lucky to work with Intridea,” said Brian Lacey, CEO of Mobomo.

“I'm thrilled to merge our user experience, product development, and Angular skills with Mobomo's mobile and web expertise,” said Marc Garrett, CEO of Intridea.

The acquisition of Intridea means Mobomo will be able to offer even more world class web development services to our customers. "If you've read business news, received a paycheck, opened an email, had a baby, or attended a wedding, you've encountered Intridea's work. Our designs are viable, useful, and engage tens of millions of users,” said Garrett.

This acquisition was about more than just growth. It was also about bringing companies with a common ancestry together. “One aspect of the acquisition that was particularly attractive to me was the fact that Mobomo and Intridea share a common DNA in Barg Upender, who co-founded Intridea in 2007 and founded Mobomo in 2009," said Lacey. This mutual foundation will allow Mobomo to merge Intridea’s team and processes into Mobomo operations painlessly.

Our family just got a little bigger. Please join us in welcoming Intridea to Team Mobomo.

About Intridea

Founded in 2007, Intridea is an internationally recognized leader in design, user experience, AngularJS, front-end engineering, and open source. A 2011 Inc 500 fastest growing company, Intridea develops technology solutions and web products for startups and enterprise customers including ADP, Citi, Mitsubishi, and XO Group. Intridea is headquartered in Washington, DC. For more information, visit http://www.intridea.com.

About Mobomo

Founded in 2009, Mobomo is a premier provider of web and mobile development services to businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. It combines technology expertise with disciplines in digital strategy, interactive marketing, and branding to create innovative applications and websites for world-class brands and organizations, such as Mars, Inc., Marriott, NASA, and the US Navy. Mobomo has a strong history of solving some of the most difficult problems using its Agile, co-creation methodology.

Mobomo has launched countless products and websites across every major market vertical. The innovative solutions it has created have gained press and won awards, including the 2014 People’s Voice Webby Award for Government website design and the 2011 AFFIRM Leadership Award for Innovative Applications, among others.

• Read more about User-Centric Design for Federal Websites

For Federal Offices of Communication, the act—and art—of balancing websites that both cater to the public and promote the organizational structure and mission of the organization is always top of mind. Accordingly, those partnering with Federal offices must prioritize meeting both needs when designing and building agency sites. On numerous projects, our team has successfully managed to increase usability and deliver user-centric designs while simultaneously building sites that allow our Federal clients to bolster their brand. A sample of results for some clients:

-a swift 4% increase in first-time visitor overall satisfaction
-76% of all mobile users strongly agreeing that the new site made content easier to find
-88% of frequently visiting teens being satisfied with the new site

Below are some of the tools we’ve implemented to achieve success:

Navigation and Information Architecture

Treejack is a great usability testing tool that development teams can wield to test the information architecture and navigation of the site prior to even beginning a design. It is best used to test the findability of topics in a website using different navigational hierarchies. For one of our projects, both internal and external stakeholders were given 46 tasks to perform using a variety of different navigation hierarchies to find the most optimal site organization for both constituent groups.

Usability Testing

For usability testing, our team leverages both Loop11 and Usertesting.com. Using a live, interactive environment, both of these tools allow development teams to gain deep understanding of user behavior by observing users as they complete a series of tasks and questions on the site and/or mobile app in question. Interactions are captured and then analyzed in comprehensive reports. As an added bonus, Usertesting.com provides video footage of the interaction for review:

http://bit.ly/1rRvEAm

In summary, Federal websites and applications are often designed with too much emphasis on organizational hierarchy and goals, and too little focus on meeting end-users’ needs and expectations. User-Centric Design (UCD) tools can help government agencies buck this trend, however, allowing them to create websites and applications that engage users and maximize their interaction. Ultimately, this results in a sure win-win: Federal agencies’ constituents can experience an efficient, satisfying, and user-friendly design, and—with constituents’ increased engagement—organizations can ensure that their missions and information are communicated effectively. Act balanced.

• Read more about Going to Guatemala: One Project Manager Shares His Story

By: Patrick Harrington

This is my third time volunteering with From Houses to Homes in Guatemala. My previous two trips were back in the summers of 2011 and 2012. A lot of people ask me, "Why do you keep going back?" The answer to this question is difficult to put into words, but I'll give it my best shot.

From the second I step off the plane in Guatemala City, I know I have been transported into a different world. The cars are older, the traffic seems to have no rules, and the pollution seems to be a little bit stronger. As I try to find a taxi labeled "Antigua" and a driver that can understand my broken Spanish, anxiety begins to grow and I start to ask myself, "What am I doing here?"

That moment of doubt quickly fades as I begin to remember the reasons that bring me to Guatemala. At first it's the natural beauty of the country. The three volcanoes that surround Antigua are a constant reminder of the earth's strength and power. The cobblestone roads and multi-color houses that make up the city remind me of a time that seems lost in most places back in the U.S. The ruins that scatter the country fill me with amazment as I imagine the ancient civilization from which they came.

But what truly keeps bringing me back to Guatemala is the people.

Today, I met the family that we are helping: it is comprised of three boys (ages 17, 10, and 3) and their two parents. In typical Guatemalan fashion, they also introduced us to their entire extended family and group of friends. It didn't take long for the kids and family to warm up to us. The language barrier dissolved as we used our poor Spanish and hand gestures to play games with the kids (try to throw the rock in the bucket, toss the soccer ball off my head, etc.); we were quickly rewarded with laughter and smiles—a reminder that we are all connected.

While it is easy to look around and see everything they don't have, it is the happiness they share with us that keeps me coming back. It is in these moments that I realize life is truly not about what I have, but rather the people that make up my life.

• Read more about Apple Watch: A Look Inside

At the time of this writing (pre-WWDC 2015), there are a number of limitations on what Apple Watch code can do. The primary limitation is that watch apps cannot exist by themselves. It is necessary for the watch app to be a part of a corresponding phone app. Apple has said they will not accept watch apps where the phone app does not do anything itself. Also, watch-only apps (such as watch faces) are not allowed for this same reason—although it’s rumored that this may change after WWDC 2015.

Another Apple Watch limitation is that Core Graphics animations are not supported, but animated GIFs are. Complex layouts (such as overlapping elements) are not allowed. However, elements can be positioned as if they overlap—provided only one element is visible at a time. Using actions such as taps and timers, the visibility of these "overlapping" elements can be changed. This can be implemented to provide a more dynamic interface. Another major limitation (also whispered to change after WWDC 2015) is that watch apps cannot access any of the hardware on the watch including the motion sensor and heart sensor.

Most watch app processing (controller logic) is done on the phone instead of the watch, and some delays are inherent in the Bluetooth communication that transpires between the watch and the phone as the view (on the watch) talks back to the controller (on the phone). This view/controller split is not obvious in the code, but the watch/phone split is obvious in the code, as the watch cannot access anything from the phone, even though the controller logic is running on the phone side—except via a specific watch-to-phone request.

One notable feature is the watch app’s ability to explicitly call the phone app with a dictionary and obtain a dictionary response. This functionality allows the developer to then set up a number of client-server style requests, where the watch is the client, and the phone is the server. For example, the watch can request information from—or record information to—the phone. The phone (which has storage and may have Internet connectivity) can then fulfill the request and provide data in response to the watch. This can drive the phone app's UI to provide near-real-time synchronization of the watch app display, as well as the phone app display.

Custom notifications (both local notifications and push notifications) are supported on the watch. These custom notifications can have a somewhat customized layout as well as having the ability to define a set of custom actions. After performing one of these actions, the watch app is started. Apple mentions not to use notifications as a way to just launch the watch app from the phone app. Apple maintains that the notifications should provide useful information.

One developer test limitation relates to custom watch notifications (for local notifications).  Since watch notifications are only displayed if the phone is asleep, there is no direct way to test custom watch notifications.  Because of this, XCode does provide a mechanism to test push notifications in the simulator (using a JSON file), but there is no similar mechanism to test local notifications. Still, one can certainly test local notifications with the physical device.

• Read more about NASA Uses "Headless" Drupal To Reach New Website Heights

In April 2015, NASA unveiled a brand new look and user experience for NASA.gov. This release revealed a site modernized to 1) work across all devices and screen sizes (responsive web design), 2) eliminate visual clutter, and 3) highlight the continuous flow of news updates, images, and videos.

With its latest site version, NASA—already an established leader in the digital space—has reached even higher heights by being one of the first federal sites to use a “headless” Drupal approach. Though this model was used when the site was initially migrated to Drupal in 2013, this most recent deployment rounded out the endeavor by using the Services module to provide a REST interface, and ember.js for the client-side, front-end framework.

Implementing a “headless” Drupal approach prepares NASA for the future of content management systems (CMS) by:

1. Leveraging the strength and flexibility of Drupal’s back-end to easily architect content models and ingest content from other sources. As examples:

• Our team created the concept of an “ubernode”, a content type which homogenizes fields across historically varied content types (e.g., features, images, press releases, etc.). Implementing an “ubernode” enables easy integration of content in web services feeds, allowing developers to seamlessly pull multiple content types into a single, “latest news” feed. This approach also provides a foundation for the agency to truly embrace the “Create Once, Publish Everywhere” philosophy of content development and syndication to multiple channels, including mobile applications, GovDelivery, iTunes, and other third party applications.

• Additionally, the team harnessed Drupal’s power to integrate with other content stores and applications, successfully ingesting content from blogs.nasa.gov, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov, earthobservatory.nasa.gov, www.spc.noaa.gov, etc., and aggregating the sourced content for publication.

2. Optimizing the front-end by building with a client-side, front-end framework, as opposed to a theme. For this task, our team chose ember.js, distinguished by both its maturity as a framework and its emphasis of convention over configuration. Ember embraces model-view-controller (MVC), and also excels at performance by batching updates to the document object model (DOM) and bindings.

In another stride toward maximizing “Headless” Drupal’s massive potential, we configured the site so that JSON feed records are published to an Amazon S3 bucket as an origin for a content delivery network (CDN), ultimately allowing for a high-security, high-performance, and highly available site.

Below is an example of how the technology stack which we implemented works:

Using ember.js, the NASA.gov home page requests a list of nodes of the latest content to display. Drupal provides this list as a JSON feed of nodes:

Ember then retrieves specific content for each node. Again, Drupal provides this content as a JSON response stored on Amazon S3:

Finally, Ember distributes these results into the individual items for the home page:

The result? A NASA.gov architected for the future. It is worth noting that upgrading to Drupal 8 can be done without reconfiguring the ember front-end. Further, migrating to another front-end framework (such as Angular or Backbone) does not require modification of the Drupal CMS.

• Read more about CodePen Freebie - A simple, editable accordion caret icon built in CSS

[codepen_embed height=300 theme_id=1 slug_hash='BNaeeE' user='Mobomo LLC' default_tab='result' animations='run']

See: CSS Architecture: A Recommended Strategy To Put Into Practice