• Read more about Mobomo, LLC Chosen to Create the MBN Radio Sawa Mobile Application

In September 2022, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. announced its plans to award Team Mobomo the opportunity to build MBN’s Radio Sawa Mobile Application.

Radio Sawa provides news and information to audiences throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) through different media platforms, including mobile devices and the Internet. Radio Sawa maintains an active all-news website (www.radiosawa.com) which provides both up to the minute news and information as well as audio live streaming, making the network one of the most trusted sources of news and insights on social and political life in the Middle East and North Africa.

The project will consist of building a modern, user-friendly, and engaging mobile application for smartphone users living in the MENA region. It will be an audio-content-based app that allows users to seamlessly stream audio channels, listen to on-demand audio content/radio shows/podcasts, read about shows and episodes, and interact with the content and channel. The primary objective is to revamp the website and the mobile application of Radio Sawa which currently has three streams/channels, such that they meet the audio channel’s digital transformation needs. The app will be available on both iOS and Android app stores and be compatible with the devices used in the MENA region.

ABOUT MOBOMO 

Mobomo is a CMMI Dev Level 3 premier mobile, web, and cloud application development company that has extensive experience in creating award-winning, Agile, user-centered design solutions and providing DevSecOps capabilities. As a proud Drupal Association member, Amazon Web Services (AWS) public sector partner and reseller, Microsoft certified partner, Acquia partner, and member of the Digital Services Coalition, Mobomo is well positioned to provide our clients with quality service, executing tasks on time and within budget, while minimizing risk.

ABOUT MBN:

The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN) is the non-profit news organization that operates Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa under a grant from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

To learn more about Team Mobomo, please feel free to visit our website.

• Read more about Is Drupal 10 Actually Y2K 2.0?

In the days of old, long, long ago, civilization nearly came to a standstill all because of sloppy code and a lack of foresight. Geniuses promoting the impending catastrophe creatively named it Y2K (Year 2000) and in the months that preceded the impending doom that the world would reap as a result of the “millennium bug” (as it was also so aptly referred to), programmers across all industries scrambled to save the culture’s – neigh – the world’s recent and vast leaps in technology made during the dawn of the internet. Some 20+ years later, Drupal developers find themselves beset by a similar foe – Drupal 10 and the premature, planned obsolescence of CKEditor 4.  

Okay…so that was all a bit hyperbolic (but there is a slice of truth to it). Drupal 10 is actually going to be a really great upgrade that is streamlined and refined, utilizing the most popular and critical modules for development while simultaneously retiring unused, underused, and non-essential modules – all the great features of Drupal 9 without any of the dead weight. Furthermore, Drupal releases are going to be performed in tandem with Symphony releases with a continuous focus on honing the core so that it is a sound infrastructure upon which modules can be used to strengthen and expand that core going forward. 

But the elephants in the room are CKEditor 4 (under planned obsolescence) and CKEditor 5 (being built from scratch). The trouble with building something from scratch to replace something old (at least in the case of CKEditor 5) is that the old library is filled with “hard copy books” while the new library is “digital” – and there is no automated “module converter” available. With very few of the modules within CKEditor 4 being transferred to CKEditor 5, a large selection of plugins that are currently being used on existing modules are not yet compatible and because Drupal is an open-source community, it falls to the community to contribute patches back…which isn’t happening fast enough. 

Unlike Y2K, the patches that need to be made between CKEditor 4 and 5 are not currently being backed and funded by corporations and federal agencies and by the time the urgency in doing so is realized, it may be too much of a crunch to accomplish the fix. The beauty of open-source software is that it belongs to everyone. But, as Peter Parker’s uncle said, “With power comes responsibility” and if we as a Drupal community don’t all take a little responsibility for this, we will all pay the price. For more information, the upgrade coordination can be found here and information on the deprecated and obsolete modules and themes can be found here. Within Mobomo, we pride ourselves on being thought leaders and valued contributors to this open-source community. If you have any questions, please reach out to us here and send a message directly to the Mobomo team. 

• Read more about Drupal Infrastructure Done Right

Mobomo’s Drupal GovCon 2021 Training

Each year, the best and brightest in the web development community gather at Drupal GovCon to expand their expertise and share the latest insights and trends regarding Drupal, the free and open-source web content management system (CMS) that provides the back-end framework for at least 1300 of the top websites worldwide.

Mobomo, a leader in scalability who has worked with federal agencies from NASA to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), has been a key contributor to Drupal GovCon since its inception in 2015 and, as the sole Accessibility Sponsor for this year’s convention, our team of experts embraced the honor of hosting several shorter presentations in addition to an extensive training on Drupal infrastructure best practices. 

Widely recognized for a track record building some of the most trafficked sites for government entities, the Mobomo technical team is committed to serving the 1.4 million strong Drupal community as a partner and thought leader. This year, Mobomo aces Jason Schulte, Dan Narkiewicz, and Jeff Beagley focused on Mobomo’s unique approach and philosophy regarding what doing Drupal right really looks like.   An infrastructure, hosting, and web development veteran with more than 20 years experience fostering cohesive teams dedicated to innovation, Jason Schulte, Mobomo’s CTO, joined Dan Narkiewicz, a Full Stack Developer and Engineering Manager who specializes in Docker-in-the-Cloud solutions for Drupal 7, 8, and 9, and Jeff Beagley, a DevSecOps Engineer with a wide-ranging background in software development and a focus on building automated and efficient applications/architectures at scale. Together, they created a playbook for the more technically savvy Drupal GovCon attendees to hone their abilities in designing sites that strike the right balance between speed and aesthetics without sacrificing long term scalability capabilities.

The “Mobomo Way” deep dive Jason, Dan, and Jeff engaged in with the group began with Drupal on a single server using docker containers and then scaled it to a high-availability, production-ready cloud deployment utilizing AWS managed cloud services to scale the Drupal infrastructure with the capability to leverage AWS automation to its fullest extent. Taking advice from John Wooden, who famously once said, “If you don’t have the time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”, Jason, Dan, and Jeff shared the most critical elements involved in building sites that perform – and will keep performing no matter the scale; namely, memcache, docker containers, and appropriate planning of the reverse proxy caching layer and CDN.

Memcache

Speeding up dynamic web applications by reducing the database load, memcache is an open source, high-performance distributed memory caching system that is widely recognized for optimizing the user experience. Mobomo believes every Drupal site should be built using memcache because, without it, sites can encounter performance issues in the long term.  We have seen it too many times and the scalability issues that arise from not using memcache can become cost and performance prohibitive for you and your clients.

Docker Containers

Packaging applications and all their dependencies together in the form of “containers”, Docker ensures that each application is independent of other applications, will not interfere with one another, and is easily replicable by QA teams. This containerization platform works seamlessly in any environment but most importantly, Docker Containers force developers to view site infrastructures in terms of separate components and separate the site components at the beginning of the development process, which allows for easy scalability of individual layers throughout all site expansion efforts today and into the future.

Reverse Proxy Caching Layer and the CDN

Maximizing site performance is critical to the user experience, but a great deal of care and planning must go into a reverse proxy caching layer and the CDN (Content Delivery Network).  This can truly be one of the most difficult things to set up and configure properly, primarily because this is never a one size fits all situation.  The reverse proxy and CDN is how you make the site perform really fast for the public, but whenever you publish new content to the site, you run up against the CDN – so, striking a balance between these two forces (pushing content out quickly without hitting the backend all the time) is very challenging.  Mobomo’s training seminar touched on this, but in reality, reverse proxy caching and the CDN is a topic that could have its own intricate training course.  In other areas, developers can be prescriptive, but in this instance, the way in which each is calibrated is entirely dependent upon the site needs and usage.  For example, a news organization that publishes articles by the minute will require different planning than a government entity with static pages updated on an infrequent basis.

Jason, Dan, and Jeff made this look extremely easy through their training, but suffice it to say, practice makes perfect – and as experts in their fields, these gentlemen have seen and worked their way through many challenging site builds/rebuilds.

Have questions about performance audits or scaling your site? Interested in learning more from Jason, Dan, and Jeff? We at Mobomo pride ourselves on redefining the status quo in product design and DevSecOps engineering and are committed to sharing knowledge with our colleagues, so we’ve included a link to our Drupal GovCon training presentation. We welcome any thoughts you have on our work and or suggestions you have for future training that would be valuable to you and your organization. 

Please feel free to reach out to us via LinkedIn or click this link to access our contact form and share how we can help you.

• Read more about MOBOMO IS PROUD WINNER OF GSA - BPA

MOBOMO, LLC AWARDED CORPORATE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) SERVICES BPA

Mobomo, LLC is honored to be awarded a Blanket Purchase Agreement with the U.S General Services Administration (GSA). This five year, $250M agreement will support GSA’s Office of Corporate IT Services. Within the agreement, Mobomo will have the opportunity to support the agency’s digital technology transformation and opportunities may fall under the following categories:

Mobomo is thrilled with the opportunity this GSA-wide procurement vehicle offers to any GSA group or sub-agency. The easy-to-access solution will streamline the government’s ability to procure and utilize our technology services, which will continue to build on our decades’ history of work at the GSA.

Between our subject matter experts and our award-winning offerings, we know that we can provide GSA and their sub-agencies with elegant solutions to support any of their challenges. We look forward to this future partnership and the opportunities that may arise. 

About Mobomo:  Mobomo, LLC is a premier mobile, web, and cloud application development company that has extensive experience in creating award-winning, agile, human-centered design, and providing DevSecOps capabilities.  Mobomo has helped revolutionize the digital federal landscape through our innovative designs of high performing websites and applications that are engineered to fit the needs of government agencies. Through a collaborative, consultative process, we use cutting-edge DevOps techniques to deliver mobile, web, and cloud solutions that are integrated with our proven Agile software development methodology.

About GSA:

The U.S. General Services Administration’s mission is to deliver value and savings in real estate, acquisition, technology and other mission-support services across the government. Overall, creating an effective and efficient government for all. GSA does this by leading acquisition and procurement strategies that help agencies access inventive and effective commercial solutions. They work with vendors and suppliers to create beneficial partnerships that make it easier to do business and drive lower costs for government, therefore, saving tax payers money and improving overall performance.

 See more about our federal capabilities and customers here.

• Read more about What To Keep in Mind When Looking for a CMS Provider

Whether you're a business looking to build a world-class website or a government entity looking for a custom CMS solution that ticks all-the-boxes, finding the right CMS provider is the single most important step in your website journey. But how do you find the right partner? For government projects, website needs and budgets may need to be carefully defined in a solicitation guide for contractors. Businesses, on the other hand, often forge website proposals to send to multiple agencies.

So, what should you include in these proposals and solicitation guides? After all, choosing the right partner can make-or-break your entire website, and you need a holistic, best-fit partner to execute your website project with fervor, ambition, and purpose. Here's the scary part: over  30% of IT projects fail to meet initial guidelines, over 45% fail to meet the budget, and a terrifying 14% outright fail. A carefully crafted website proposal and solicitation prevents website failures and gives your CMS creator a concrete guideline for your website execution.

A Checklist for Your CMS Creator

Before you start writing your website guidelines, you need to know exactly what to include. Writing any type of proposal or solicitation guideline is a monotonous, labor-intensive process. It involves plenty of workshopping, stakeholder touchpoints, and language crafting. So, despite your guideline being a make-or-break component of your website design, many public and private bodies rush through their guideline and hope to discuss downstream details with their provider in-person. That's a bad idea. Your guideline sets the tone for your entire project. You want a thorough, well-defined project scope, and you want to include as many details as possible without overwhelming potential providers.

Let's look at a checklist of every core component your CMS project guideline should have.

What is Your Budget?

Let's start with the big one: budget. While capital isn't necessarily synonymous with beautifully-designed and hyper-functional CMS websites, your budget may restrict your features. You should be upfront and honest with your budget requirements. Every website has one goal: delivering wonderfully purposeful experiences. Your budget will help determine how those experiences get delivered.

An expert CMS designer will be able to help you work within your budget. You may need to shed some "wants" and focus on less-disruptive designs if you have a low budget, but that doesn't mean you can't create an impactful website. If you're honest and upfront about your overall budget, you'll find the most appropriate CMS provider for the job.

What Are Your Aesthetic and Functional Requirements

There are two primary types of website needs: functional and aesthetic. Your functional needs involve features and your overall CMS architecture. These needs contribute to the bulk of your website. You may need custom modules, API integrations, and modular components that deliver meaningful experiences to your customers. Sit down with your stakeholders and discuss what your website needs to do in a functional capacity. Again, your CMS provider will help you immensely with this step. They have the technical experience to navigate the increasingly-complex website component ecosystem, and they'll help you drill down and articulate the types of features you want.

Aesthetic requirements are very personal. Often, your aesthetic needs are based less on your target audience and more on your brand. Who are you? What colors, designs, and patterns represent you? And how can you leverage your brand in a very physical and aesthetic way? 86% of people say that "authenticity" is a key consideration when choosing who to do business with, and using a simple brand color can boost recognition by 80%.

Who is Your Consumer?

Touch base with your stakeholders and consider your end-user. Who is going to be using your websites? And how are they going to be using it? As an example, a public agency looking to create a public-facing news website may want to appeal to a broad, less-defined audience, while businesses often lean into buyers' personas and target audiences. Generally, the more defined you get, the better. Websites that leverage personas are 5 times easier to use for those targeted users.

While we heavily recommend discovering your end-user upfront, this is an area that an expert CMS creator can help you with. At Mobomo, we leverage over 16,000 modules to architect one-of-a-kind Drupal-based CMS solutions. So, we have a wealth of experience in building niche, user-driven solutions for a variety of public and private bodies. We can lean on that experience to move you towards an ideal user. But it's best to come at least semi-prepared.

Who is Your Internal User and What Are Their Needs?

Along with customers, you need to consider your internal users. For internal CMS websites, this is your entire audience. Otherwise, consider who will be using your website internally. Unfortunately, many people ignore internal requirements. Customer-facing websites often get drenched in feature-rich, hyper-visual design with tons of bells-and-whistles while internal users are left to pick apart the scraps. Clunky, outdated modules and generic UIs plague internal pages. But they shouldn't. Creating an internal website that's easy-to-use, engaging, and mobile-accessible can drive productivity and reduce workplace frictions.

During your proposal or pitch, discuss your internal user needs. Any industry-leading website designer will be able to deliver spectacular solutions that cater to internal users or amazing customer-facing websites with easy-to-use back-end architecture for internal developers.

Understanding Needs vs. Wants

Separate your needs from your wants. Not only does this help prioritize your features, but it gives you financial flexibility. For example, a CMS provider may see your proposal and be capable of delivering 95% of your proposal for the budget specified. Having a clear and comprehensive need vs. want structure helps them identify which areas they can exclude. Additionally, categorizing needs prevent you from being approached by providers and creators that may try to haggle with you and exclude must-have features.

Ideally, you want every single feature specified in your proposal, but that may not be possible within your budget. Give CMS providers flexibility and wiggle-room to approach you with a best-fit solution.

Mobomo Can Help You Build Your Dream CMS Website

At Mobomo, we fearlessly pursue rich experiences that go above-and-beyond expectations. Our agile-driven development process and hyper-customizable websites are intricately designed, purposefully experienced, and entirely brand-driven. Are you looking for a world-class government website or business solution?
Contact us. We're ready to help you create websites built on fundamentally disruptive and security-driven architecture.

• Read more about Mobomo, LLC Won Three Awards from the 2020 Vega Digital Awards: Season 2

The Vega Digital Awards has released their 2020 Season 2 winners and Mobomo has proudly won three different awards:

• Centauri Award for NOAA Fisheries under the Science Website category
• Arcturus for NOAA Fisheries under the Government Website category
• Arcturus for the PRAC Pandemic Oversight work under the Government Website category

The Vega Digital Awards recognizes and honors digital content creators worldwide for their exemplary talents and creative minds. These awards are open to all, no matter the affiliations or experience of the creators. To evaluate the entries, a panel of experienced judges evaluates and critiques each entry, providing a rating on a scale of 100.

Mobomo is honored and proud to receive these three awards. We know how hard the two teams have worked from researching, designing and developing both the fisheries.noaa.gov and pandemicoversight.gov sites. Our hats go off to them and thank each and every team member for their dedication to the project and to the clients’ overall happiness with the work we’re conducting.

 

More about these projects:  

NOAA Fisheries:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, also known as the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), is a federal agency responsible for the stewardship of the nation’s ocean resources and their habitat. Their services include: conservation and management of U.S. waters to promote prevention of overfishing, declining species, and degraded habitats. NOAA Fisheries manages five coastal regions broken down by department, fisheries management, science centers, and labs. Each office ran their own independent site creating inconsistency and overlap in content and design as each isolated digital property.

Mobomo partnered with NOAA Fisheries to assist in restructuring and redesigning their digital presence. Merging all their core web properties into one Drupal site allowed users to go to one destination to find and discover information they need. Mobomo focused on improving content efficiency, design consistency, and unifying NOAA Fisheries voice. Mobomo followed a user-centered approach that consisted of discovery, research, design, and validation phases to deliver a comprehensive, documented and validated user-centered design and information architecture that unified the 16 previously disparate web properties into one site.

Within one year, we launched the framework for their next generation site.

The NOAA Fisheries site is more than a conveyor of marine life information and research. It offers a large variety of information; from summaries of upcoming rules, permits, funding opportunities, to various types of helpful resources. Each section had its own challenges for the Mobomo team to learn and develop automated solutions around. The goal was to automate and simplify the content for users to locate, as well as for editors to post and manage.

 

The PRAC:

In 2020 the Coronavirus reached the United States calling for the development and passing of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). To help inform the public of the spending provided by the CARES Act, the PRAC (Pandemic Response Accountability Committee) and Mobomo teams launched PandemicOversight.gov. The overarching goal of this site is to promote transparency for the government’s spending in response to COVID-19 by displaying the details of who received the $2.6 trillion relief and how they will be spending it. The site also provides helpful resources for reporting fraud and funding abuse.

Mobomo’s objective was to redesign, develop and deploy a new website for the PRAC built using a Drupal content management system (CMS) and deployed into the Microsoft Azure cloud. The website needed to support displaying interactive graphics for showcasing Coronavirus relief funding, as well as various government reports surrounding pandemic response and instances of fraud, abuse and mismanagement of relief funding. Due to resource circumstances, the new website had only a 5-week timeframe for redesign, develop and deployment of the new website.

Within the tight turnaround, Mobomo successfully launched the new site. The layout was designed using Mobomo’s human-centered design process. This resulted in a modern and clean look that is easy for viewers to use and understand the data and funding information provided.

• Read more about A Look at Drupal’s New Layout Builder

Recently, Drupal has been on an update rampage. The introduction of the oh-so-beautiful Drupal 9 core has spurred a chain reaction of upgrades across the Drupal platform. Just this week, we're getting a new default theme (which is hyper-minimalist and easy-on-the-eyes), a 20% reduction in install times, and automated lazy load for images. But let's talk about the juiciest UI/UX update that came with Drupal 9 — the standardization of Drupal's Layout Builder.

If you've built a pre-Drupal-9 website over the past few years, you probably dabbled with Panels/Panelizer, WYSIWYG templates, or even custom coding to set up your UX/UI. And that works. We did it for years. But you can throw that worn-out Panelizer module in the trash. The times, they are a-changing. Drupal's new Layout Builder module combines the core functionality of Panelizer with an out-of-the-box WYSIWYG engine.

First hinted at in 2017, Drupal Layout Builder officially left the onerous Drupal testing pipeline last year as part of Drupal's 8.7 updates. Despite circulating for a year now, the chaos of 2020 has overshadowed this potent and flexible tool. So, let's talk about it. Here's what you need to know about Drupal's Layout Builder.

What is Layout Builder?

Layout Builder is a WYSIWYG page editing engine that lets you manipulate back-end features via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. It's difficult to overstate just how valuable Layout Builder is when it comes to time-savings. You can create templates in minutes, immediately preview and create content changes, and tweak page-by-page UI/UX features to create more cohesive and on-the-fly websites and landing pages.

At its core, Layout Builder is a block-based layout builder. You can create layouts for either a single page or all content of a specific type. In addition, you can jump in and create rapid-fire landing pages based on your existing design theme. There are three "layers" that Layout Builder operates on to help you build out holistic websites.

1. Layout templates: You can create a layout template for all content of a specific type. For example, you can make a layout template for your blog posts or a layout template for every product page. This template will be shared across all pages, so you don't have to go in and rebuild for each content type.
2. Customized layout templates: You can also go in and make granular changes to a specific layout template. So, if you want a certain product page to be different than the layout template, you can make granular changes to just that page.
3. Landing pages: Finally, you can create one-off pages that aren't tied to structured content — like landing pages.

Important: Founder of Drupal — Dries Buytaert — dropped a blog post with some use cases for each of these layers.

To be clear, Layout Builder isn't a WYSIWYG template. It uses your existing template. Instead, it allows non-developers (and lazy-feeling developers) to quickly make per-page changes to the website without diving into code. But these aren't just simple changes. You can create a layout template for every page type (e.g., creating a specific layout for all the shoes you sell), and you can also dive into each of these layout pages to make custom changes. So, it really lets you get granular with your editing without forcing you to completely retool and redesign pages for each type of content. This gives Layout Builder a massive advantage over WordPress's Gutenberg — which requires you to go in and re-lay elements for every page individually.

Here's the kicker: you get a live-preview of all changes without bouncing between the layout and the front-end. Every block and field you place and every change you make to taxonomies or content is visible the second you make the change. The entire process takes place on the front-end, and changes are instantly visible. Remember, Layout Builder is part of Drupal's Core, so you don't need to implement new entity types of dig into third-party elements. It's an out-of-the-box experience.

Advantages of Layout Builder

Last year, we got a gorgeous, picture-perfect demo of how Layout Builder would work. It's beautiful, fast, and packs a punch that other leading layout builders are indeed missing. So, to help unpack the value of Layout Builder, let's look at some of the advantages of Layout Builder:

Customization

Beyond Layout Builder's incredibly powerful and customizable block-based design engine, it offers customization in usage. Let's say you want to create an amazing landing page. You can start with a blank page that's untied to structured content, drop in some hero images, a few pieces of text, some content, and a video. Suddenly, you have a custom landing page (complete with modules, blocks, and taxonomy) that exists in a separate ecosystem from your website.

Simultaneously, you can create a template for every blog post, then dive into a specific blog post and make on-time changes to just that page while still being tied to your structured content. Remember, you can make these changes nearly instantly, without touching code. And you'll see a live preview of every change immediately without switching between interfaces.

Accessibility

Drupal is committed to accessibility. The second principle of Drupal's Values & Principles page reads, "build software everyone can use," and this rings true. Layout Builder meets Drupal's accessibility gate standards (i.e., conforms to WCAG 2.0 and ATAG 2.0, text color has sufficient contrast, JavaScript is keyboard-usable, etc.)

Ease-of-use

Like many WYSIWYG editors, Drupal Layout Builder is all about "blocks." But these aren't your run-of-the-mill blocks. There are inline blocks, field blocks, global blocks, and system blocks. Each of these has its own use case, and you can combine these block types to create stellar pages in minutes. For example, global blocks are used to create templates, and inline blocks are used to create page-specific changes that don't impact the layout. The combination of these block types makes Layout Builder a hassle-free experience.

Additionally, there are plenty of ease-of-use features built into the core. Layout Builder works with the keyboard, has plenty of usability features that tie to Drupal's value statements, and allows nit-picky setups for customized workflows.

Creating a Drupal Website is Easier Than Ever

With Layout Builder, users can generate valuable content and pages without needing to patch together various WYSIWYG tools or Panel/Panelizer. At Mobomo, we're incredibly excited for our clients to dive into Drupal Layout Builder and make actionable and memorable changes to their templates based on their in-the-moment needs and experiences.

But Layout Builder isn't a replacement for a well-designed and well-developed website. We can help you build your next world-class website. Once we're done, Layout Builder gives you the freedom to make substantial changes without the headaches, back-and-forth, or unnecessary touchpoints. Are you ready to create a customer-centric, experience-driven digital space? Contact us.

• Read more about Debunking 4 CMS Migration Myths

Here's a dirty secret: most businesses are unsatisfied with their website. Research shows that 34% of website owners are unsatisfied with the amount of business their website generates for them. Loudhouse data suggests that 62% of business owners believe a more effective website would increase their sales. And millions of business websites deal with slow load times, inconsistent customer experiences, and problematic UI/UX issues.

There's a reason that 36% of small businesses STILL don't have a website. Creating an amazing, design-driven, customer-centric website is challenging. So, what do you do when your website isn't making the cut? You look towards the source — your Content Management System (CMS). Every year, thousands of private and public entities migrate their website to a new CMS.

But, unfortunately, thousands more don't. Migration is scary. It's easier to stay with your current CMS and focus on redesigns or new templates. Here's the problem: new coats of paint don't fix broken engines. If you're thinking about migrating from WordPress or Joomla to Drupal, you've probably heard rumors and myths regarding migrations.

Let's clear those up. Here are 4 myths about migration that need to be squashed.

Myth #1: I'm Going to Lose All My Content/Data

This is, by far, the most common excuse against migrating. You're worried all of that precious content and data are going to fall off the ship if you switch ports. And, you're right to worry. It could... if you don't migrate correctly. But it's not inevitable. You can prevent data and content loss. In fact, if you lose data or content, we would consider that a failed migration. In other words, successful migrations keep data and content intact by definition.

Here are some handy-dandy steps you can take to ensure that your precious data doesn't go overboard during your migration:

Myth #2: I Have to Invest in a Redesign

You're migrating; you might as well invest in a redesign, right? Sure! You could. But it's tricky. When you do a redesign and a migration, you're no longer just matching URL-to-URL and content-to-content, you're simultaneously rebuilding your website. Don't get us wrong; there are advantages. It's a great time to redesign from an SEO perspective (you're already going to take a small hit during the migration; more on this in the next section), but it also requires significantly more planning, budget, and time.

If you want to do a redesign-migration, we heavily recommend that you touch base with your design company. You want to work through the kinks and create a best-in-class action plan to tackle any issues that may (or may not) pop up. The entire migration will be structured around the redesign, so it's important to carefully weigh your options.

Myth #3: Goodbye SEO!

From an SEO perspective, migration sounds like a nightmare. You've worked diligently to build up your SEO. What happens when you frolic to a new location? Let's get this out of the way: your SEO will take a temporary hit. But, it shouldn't last long. In fact, there's a good chance you're moving to another platform because it's better at handling SEO. For example, Drupal has built-in SEO capabilities (e.g., title-based URL nodes, customizable meta tags, etc.) WordPress does not. Obviously, you can get SEO plugins for WordPress that help you build SEO functionalities, but most of those plugins are also available for Drupal — so Drupal gives you a net gain.

Here's a secret: migration can help your page rank. After the first awkward week (Google has to recrawl your website, recognize that it's you, and give you back your ranking), migration can help you build a more powerful SEO framework.

Want to migrate without dumping your SEO overboard? Here are some tips:

Myth #4: You Just Have to "Lift-and-Shift"

There are plenty of myths surrounding the difficulty of migration. But there are also a few myths making migration out to be super easy. And, without a doubt, the most prevalent "easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy" migration myth is the ever-coveted "lift-and-shift." There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for migrating websites. Sometimes, it can be as easy as lifting content off of one website and putting it onto another website. But that's seldom the case.

Generally, you need to set up test servers, check to see if website elements function correctly on the new platform, test out and utilize new CMS features, and a variety of other tasks before you can simply drop content from one place to another. In other words, lift-and-shift may work when you're migrating a cloud environment, but it often doesn't work with CMS migration.

Remember, just because everything worked perfectly in one environment doesn't mean it will in another one. You may have to fix some website elements and carefully construct your new website ecosystem. At the same time, you'll probably be playing around with the new features available to you on Drupal — so the "lift-and-shift" is usually more of a "lift-and-test-and-shift."

Do You Need Help With Your Drupal Migration?

At Mobomo, we help private and public entities migrate to Drupal environments using proven migration strategies and best-in-class support. So, whether you're looking to establish your website in a more secure, SEO-friendly environment or you're looking to do a redesign-and-migrate, we can help you migrate pain-free. Are you ready to move to a brighter future?

Contact us. We've got your back.

• Read more about Mobomo’s Picks: Top 10 Drupal Websites

A chef can make a great meal with a few basic ingredients. But when offered a massive pantry full of options, the result can be a work of art.

The same principle applies when it comes to website CMS software. A basic template-style CMS can result in something that hits the spot. But Drupal’s staggering degree of flexibility and modular options has allowed the developers of some of the world’s most prominent websites to create gorgeous and highly functional sites that inspire, inform, and elevate.

Here are our top 10 picks for Drupal websites that we think have raised the bar:

• Tesla
• PGAL
• The University of Texas at Austin
• Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles
• Mint
• National Baseball Hall of Fame
• The Australian Government
• Rethinking Picasso’s Guernica
• The Emmy Awards
• NASA

Let’s examine these in more detail:

10. Tesla

A rare day passes by without Tesla making headlines. The brand and its founder, Elon Musk, are renowned for big, audacious ideas that have potential to change the world. The beautiful photography and design make every section look like a high-end editorial page in a magazine, while the simple, intuitive navigation and call-to-action features are clean and unobtrusive. It all combines to create a website that’s aspirational yet attainable.

9. PGAL

PGAL is an international design firm focusing on interiors, architecture, planning, and engineering. Their challenge is to show and tell, so that potential clients are dazzled by the site’s visuals while still being able to find enough solid information to want to take the next step. The site, which uses imagery as the gateway to project stories, is a delightful rabbit-hole that we could spend hours exploring. Make sure to check out their Projects page, as it is an excellent example of how to show off a portfolio in a clean but comprehensive way.

8. The University of Texas at Austin

University websites can often be an overstuffed nightmare to navigate, but the team behind UT Austin’s website got it right: Their menu navigation is clean, well-organized, and enticing. Add to it a home page that evokes the fresh excitement of starting the post-secondary journey, while peppering in well-organized data that invites the reader to learn more, and you have a website that gets students and their families off to the perfect start.

7. Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles

160,000 visitors go to CHLA.org every month, making it vital for the site to present clear, accurate, easily navigated information in a way that builds and maintains trust. It’s a tall order, but CHLA.org delivers. The design is clean but far from cold, while the most frequently searched information is put front and center instead of being hidden in the navigation bars, making it easy for frazzled parents to find out what they need to know. The sheer volume of information on the “Patients and Families” page could easily be overwhelming but is organized beautifully and intuitively.

6. Mint

Mint’s value statement: “We help you effortlessly manage your finances in one place.” They offer clean and simple financial management, using a clean and simple sentence to describe what they do. A cluttered or complicated website would completely undermine their brand. Fortunately, Mint.com is anything but cluttered or complicated. The simple and soothing colors and minimalist text are reassuring to visitors who want straightforward information, while the navigation and iconography make navigation a breeze.

5. National Baseball Hall of Fame

For any website to be successful, it has to give the end-users what they’re looking for, and the BHoF delivers. After extensive user research, the site was designed to showcase the incredible stories and artifacts in BHoF’s collection, bringing it all to life for the site’s visitors. Fortunately, it also does so in a way that’s easy to navigate, inviting visitors to spend plenty of time exploring.

4. The Australian Government

As with universities and colleges, government websites can often be an impenetrable labyrinth to navigate. Australia.gov.au does things differently, living up to their header, “Helping you find government information and services.” The site is incredibly well-organized, with virtually no clutter. And even though it has not one photo to speak of, it still manages to be attractive, through a judicious use of color and minimalistic icons.

3. Rethinking Picasso’s Guernica

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía created an ambitious project around one of Picasso's most famous works of art, and the results were groundbreaking: The project has been recognized with a Webby as the best 2018 Cultural Institutions Website. The storytelling and imagery on this site are captivating, while the user experience is smooth and unobtrusive.

2.  The Emmy Awards

The Emmy Awards are splashy and glamorous on the outside, while requiring meticulous planning and organization behind the scenes. Their website is no different. With a plethora of content, rich color choices, and high-quality images, the site is as immersive an experience as the awards show is. But thoughtful, intuitive navigation, exciting features, and well-curated content demonstrate expertise.

1. NASA

NASA.gov is a massive resource on space, astronomy, and the universe, offering detailed information on present and past missions, gorgeous photography, educational resources, and information about the organization in general, to name but a few features. Organizing such a wealth of information in a coherent and clear way shows what is possible with Drupal.

Full disclosure: We’re the team behind NASA.gov, so it’s understandable that we might have a soft spot for this site. However, we’re far from alone in loving the finished product. Our friends at Vardot.com call it “a shining example of Drupal CMS used to present stunning information, and elevate the user’s experience,” and NASA.gov has made the top of more than one “Best Drupal Websites” list.

Want to see the possibilities that Drupal can hold for your organization’s website?
Contact us today!

• Read more about Drupal 9: What’s New, What to Expect

Drupal 9 is scheduled for release on June 3, 2020. And as with any highly anticipated release, questions abound: “What will change from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9?” “What do I need to do to prepare before upgrading?” And top-of-mind is the big question: “What will Drupal 9 be like to work with?”

Read on as we share what you’ll need to know … and what might surprise you.

Anybody who’s upgraded from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 recalls the giant chasm between the two systems. Almost 200 new features were launched including an entirely new page editor, a new theme engine, a new text editor, and new field types, to name but a few.

This gap doesn’t exist between Drupal 8 and Drupal 9. In fact, on the surface, there IS no difference: Drupal 9 has the same code, functions, and feature set as Drupal 8.9.

So why release it then? As it turns out, there are differences — they’re just not front-and-center on the interface.

Time to Clean House

Throughout its development cycle, Drupal 8 has wound up with a lot of code debt: functions that were created programmatically and used for some time but have been rendered redundant by more efficient functions.

These bits of code clutter up Drupal 8 like your old CDs and DVDs clutter up your bookshelf: There’s nothing wrong with them, but you probably don’t need them anymore now that you have something more efficient.

The result of all this extra code is that programmatically, there might be 10 different ways to do one single thing.

What Drupal has done is marked all of those code items in the backend code base as being “deprecated”. When Drupal 9 comes out, the plan is to remove all the deprecated code on this list, leaving only the latest version of whatever that code’s API is. They’ll also be updating third-party dependencies, such as Symfony and Twig. From Drupal’s site:

Will Drupal 9 Be Better?

Yes, but not without some minor risks.

Jettisoning all this deprecated code will result in a much faster, cleaner, and better-operating version of Drupal. However, if you have legacy programs whose modules use some of that deprecated code, you could find yourself with some broken processes.

How to Prepare for Drupal 9

In general, upgrading to Drupal 9 is not an onerous process – it can literally be done via a single command. What will take more time is monitoring and auditing code bases to ensure that none of your functionality is dependent upon deprecated code.

Fortunately, Drupal is well prepared for this, and has indicated that the Drupal 8 branch of the Upgrade Status module can be used  to identify and report on any deprecated code:

In addition, we anticipate that when downloading or updating modules, Drupal will likely advise whether there are compatibility issues due to bad functions. However, that notification system isn’t currently in place (if it indeed happens at all), so your best bet is to work with your development partner, who can audit your code to identify any trouble spots.

Marie Kondo-ing Your Infrastructure

Drupal 9 will be a much faster and more streamlined platform, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If the rest of your operational architecture is similarly full of code debt and redundant processes, updating Drupal 9 will be akin to sending a Lamborghini down a pothole-rutted road: That powerful engine is wasted if the route is slowing it down.

So, going to Drupal 9 is an excellent opportunity to look at your legacy systems, audit them as well, and make sure your entire infrastructure is clean, fast, and free of roadblocks.

The Bottom Line

In general, upgrading to Drupal 9 should not be a complex or lengthy process. By cleaning out the clutter and performing some common dependencies, Drupal is practicing good development hygiene and providing its customers with a more streamlined system that will be faster … but still familiar.

Want to know more? Contact us today!