New Tutorial Format Feedback

Last year we launched a new written format for our tutorials. We’re really excited about this format because it gives us the flexibility to present information in whatever way makes the most sense. With text and video on the same page, it's easy to find what you need, and it gives you the option to learn however you learn best. We started using the new format in our Decoupled Drupal series and Drupal 8 Configuration Management series, which both consisted of mostly videos, with a few written tutorials. Once we launched those, we returned our energy to creating new Drupal 8 content. For the new Drupal 8 Theming series we brought the format to our full vision, which is to provide written context for every tutorial we create. Videos accompany most of these tutorials, although there are a few topics, just like in the Decoupled and Configuration Management series, where text is a better format for the information than a video.

After we launched this new format in a series, we asked people working through the series what they thought of it. We got a lot of great feedback about the quality of the content, as well as some new pain points we introduced in terms of actually using the new tutorials. Notably, we realize that the navigation we built last year for a video series with occasional written material doesn’t do an adequate job when the main format is written. It’s confusing and hard to use, so we’re working to quickly roll out an improved written series navigation.

A number of members mentioned that it is difficult to find the actual videos in the series. Not all tutorials have a video, and those that do have them embedded directly into the body of text. Coming from a history of a video series residing in a video player that is front and center, this caused a lot of confusion. We are working on ways to improve this on the tutorial pages—to make it clearer which pages have videos, and to play those videos quickly and easily.

We’re really thankful to our members who have spoken up about the plusses and minuses of the new tutorials. This helps us make a better product so you can get straight to the learning. Look for a number of interface updates to the tutorials in the near future as we keep working out the kinks. As always, please do let us know what’s on your mind so we can incorporate that into the work we’re doing.