This discussion is extremely important, I am delighted that the community poses this issue.
The theme is very extensive. A professional and reliable response can be obtained through a professional sociological study, which is conducted repeatedly, periodically and investigating the dynamics of the processes. However, this requires money, time and is hardly possible in the foreseeable short future.
However, the site and the forum can make this task feasible. How? Using the site and the forum to save the largest part of the cost of a sociological study - the making of polls and pay for interviewer for interviews with hundreds and thousands of respondents.
One strong side of Backdrop is the Webform module.
It is possible together with specialists in sociology to make a professional questionnaire through Webform, which is to be published on the site/forum.
Stimulate site visitors fill it out. Provide a link to this poll and ask users to fill it out on the admin/Reports/Status page and repeat a message asking them to fill out the poll after every system update.
In a few months you will have a significant and representative sociological sample. Which sociologists can analyze, to do statistical processing of the answers and to present you interesting and extremely useful data, correlations between the primary data and most importantly - trends, tendencies.
This can be done periodically and you will have empirically substantiated data on the user profiles, their knowledge, abilities, interests and requirements, with dynamics over the years, divided into different groups of users by occupation, age, business type, education and many other parameters.
* * *
I will share in a hurry some of my thoughts on the subject.
If Backdrop is a small and medium business system, and Drupal 8 is already looking at big corporate business, then it might be helpful to take into account the difference between two completely different categories of users.
Unlike the corporate business world (and Drupal 8 users since the latest changes), entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in small and medium-sized businesses (including micro-businesses) and small NGOs have many, if not entirely different, approaches to mastering new knowledge.
They are highly committed to self-education, to "lifelong learning" and their knowledge is not the result of approved curricula of any university or other formal educational institution. They are accustomed and in love with solving problems, succeeding where others give up. They are by nature inventors and innovators.
What this category of users need is not an easy-to-use system that will motivate them to choose it because it is as easy to use as "e-mail program or MS Word".
Entrepreneurs hate easy and common things. The easiest way to get them repel it by telling them - it's easy, that's what everyone does!
On the contrary, advertise Backdrop as a system that is not for everyone, which is for smart and resourceful people, those who are able to find solutions and handle challenges. And most of all - a system that excels others and gives them business advantages, makes them competitive!
It is superfluous and annoying to give them more and more interface features, innumerable layouts, and generally tools that are useful to people who lack motivation, or are unable to educate themselves. There are enough vendors for this category users - let for them compete Wordpress, Wix, SquareSpace, etc.
Your (our) type of users - small and medium-sized businesses and NGOs - need something else - excellent educational documentation and good textbooks to acquire the necessary basic knowledge of HTML and CSS. Teach them clearly and easy how to create their own themes.
It's not difficult (creating themes), I know it from my own experience, it's just hard to explain how to make it easy and understandable for people who have no special education but are resourceful, hard-working and eager to learn.
I'll give you an example from my personal experience.
10-15 years ago, I had a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, I had done a dozen static sites by this time with HTML editors. I had done 7-8 sites with Woprdpress before, it was not difficult to learn Woprdpress in 2005-2006. (Before that I was prepress master, printing books and advertisement graphic designer with good computer skills but with no web sites creating or programming knowledge.)
I was then trying to figure out how Drupal works. I decided to try Drupal because I read in a popular Bulgarian computer magazine that Drupal was much more powerful and unmatched by other CMSs, and people from the hosting company where I bought domains and hosting spoke up enthusiastically for Drupal and warned me that this CMS is much more difficult to study.
I studied both Drupal 5 and Drupal 6 at the same time because I didn't understand well the difference between the two and almost didn't understand anything at all. I have read dozens of books and articles. Or hundreds. It took me 5-6 months and gradually I started to understand a step by step. After 1 year, I made my first (very simple) site with Drupal 6. After that I have made over 150 sites up to today, the last 20-30 I have already made them with Backdrop CMS.
I have been helped i the beginning by the many dozen short tutorials found on the Internet such as these (You can find them on the Internet):
- Beginners Guide To Drupal
- Drupal Cookbook 2008
So my advice is:
Slow down the pace in developing new and new options and refining Backdrop. It is important, you are doing a great job, but you miss out another very important thing for easy mastering of the system by the audience and its imposition over competitors - help and learning information.
The forum is useful but not enough. A good textbook does not consist of a series of independent random articles, but of a sequentially thought-out lessons, done alone or co-authored, didactic teaching material that goes from simple to complex.
Find authors who can write a book like "Oh! Backdrop CMS - this is something very easy!".
Developers and developers are very important - without them the system will not exist.
But now is also the time for teachers and writers who can present the complicated things understandably - without them, the system will remain misunderstood for millions of potential and desperately needing it users.
This discussion is extremely important, I am delighted that the community poses this issue.
The theme is very extensive. A professional and reliable response can be obtained through a professional sociological study, which is conducted repeatedly, periodically and investigating the dynamics of the processes. However, this requires money, time and is hardly possible in the foreseeable short future.
However, the site and the forum can make this task feasible. How? Using the site and the forum to save the largest part of the cost of a sociological study - the making of polls and pay for interviewer for interviews with hundreds and thousands of respondents.
One strong side of Backdrop is the Webform module.
It is possible together with specialists in sociology to make a professional questionnaire through Webform, which is to be published on the site/forum.
Stimulate site visitors fill it out. Provide a link to this poll and ask users to fill it out on the admin/Reports/Status page and repeat a message asking them to fill out the poll after every system update.
In a few months you will have a significant and representative sociological sample. Which sociologists can analyze, to do statistical processing of the answers and to present you interesting and extremely useful data, correlations between the primary data and most importantly - trends, tendencies.
This can be done periodically and you will have empirically substantiated data on the user profiles, their knowledge, abilities, interests and requirements, with dynamics over the years, divided into different groups of users by occupation, age, business type, education and many other parameters.
* * *
I will share in a hurry some of my thoughts on the subject.
If Backdrop is a small and medium business system, and Drupal 8 is already looking at big corporate business, then it might be helpful to take into account the difference between two completely different categories of users.
Unlike the corporate business world (and Drupal 8 users since the latest changes), entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in small and medium-sized businesses (including micro-businesses) and small NGOs have many, if not entirely different, approaches to mastering new knowledge.
They are highly committed to self-education, to "lifelong learning" and their knowledge is not the result of approved curricula of any university or other formal educational institution. They are accustomed and in love with solving problems, succeeding where others give up. They are by nature inventors and innovators.
What this category of users need is not an easy-to-use system that will motivate them to choose it because it is as easy to use as "e-mail program or MS Word".
Entrepreneurs hate easy and common things. The easiest way to get them repel it by telling them - it's easy, that's what everyone does!
On the contrary, advertise Backdrop as a system that is not for everyone, which is for smart and resourceful people, those who are able to find solutions and handle challenges. And most of all - a system that excels others and gives them business advantages, makes them competitive!
It is superfluous and annoying to give them more and more interface features, innumerable layouts, and generally tools that are useful to people who lack motivation, or are unable to educate themselves. There are enough vendors for this category users - let for them compete Wordpress, Wix, SquareSpace, etc.
Your (our) type of users - small and medium-sized businesses and NGOs - need something else - excellent educational documentation and good textbooks to acquire the necessary basic knowledge of HTML and CSS. Teach them clearly and easy how to create their own themes.
It's not difficult (creating themes), I know it from my own experience, it's just hard to explain how to make it easy and understandable for people who have no special education but are resourceful, hard-working and eager to learn.
I'll give you an example from my personal experience.
10-15 years ago, I had a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, I had done a dozen static sites by this time with HTML editors. I had done 7-8 sites with Woprdpress before, it was not difficult to learn Woprdpress in 2005-2006. (Before that I was prepress master, printing books and advertisement graphic designer with good computer skills but with no web sites creating or programming knowledge.)
I was then trying to figure out how Drupal works. I decided to try Drupal because I read in a popular Bulgarian computer magazine that Drupal was much more powerful and unmatched by other CMSs, and people from the hosting company where I bought domains and hosting spoke up enthusiastically for Drupal and warned me that this CMS is much more difficult to study.
I studied both Drupal 5 and Drupal 6 at the same time because I didn't understand well the difference between the two and almost didn't understand anything at all. I have read dozens of books and articles. Or hundreds. It took me 5-6 months and gradually I started to understand a step by step. After 1 year, I made my first (very simple) site with Drupal 6. After that I have made over 150 sites up to today, the last 20-30 I have already made them with Backdrop CMS.
I have been helped i the beginning by the many dozen short tutorials found on the Internet such as these (You can find them on the Internet):
So my advice is:
Slow down the pace in developing new and new options and refining Backdrop. It is important, you are doing a great job, but you miss out another very important thing for easy mastering of the system by the audience and its imposition over competitors - help and learning information.
The forum is useful but not enough. A good textbook does not consist of a series of independent random articles, but of a sequentially thought-out lessons, done alone or co-authored, didactic teaching material that goes from simple to complex.
Find authors who can write a book like "Oh! Backdrop CMS - this is something very easy!".
Developers and developers are very important - without them the system will not exist.
But now is also the time for teachers and writers who can present the complicated things understandably - without them, the system will remain misunderstood for millions of potential and desperately needing it users.