>>> [!note] Migrated issue <!-- Drupal.org comment --> <!-- Migrated from issue #3501825. --> Reported by: [ckrina](https://www.drupal.org/user/1206650) >>> <h2>Conclusions and next steps </h2> <p>This piece of research helped us gain some valuable knowledge about how the content creation functionality in Drupal CMS together with the accessibility and SEO tools support content creators to publish good content. On the whole, the tests showed the content creators were able to use the system to create content and also use both the accessibility and SEO tools successfully to make content improvements as part of their natural content publishing workflow. However, it's important to point out that not all content creators have a deep understanding of marketing terminology and concepts, which means that interfaces should be designed with potential limitations in mind and should be easy to understand. The research highlighted several areas in need of ideation and improvement, to be prioritised alongside the product goals, timeline and roadmap for Drupal CMS. Considerations arising from the research are framed as problem statements below.</p> <ol> <li>Our target audience were unable to recognise that the accessibility indicators were flagging changes to be made to correct accessibility errors. How might we alter the design of the indicators so this purpose is more apparent to the content creator user?</li> <li>Our target audience nearly missed the SEO tools because they had to scroll to see them. How might we reposition these tools or signal their existence more clearly so content creators can recognise them and then use them? </li> <li>Our target audience seemed unfamiliar with processes to improve SEO. How might we make this clearer to them?</li> <li>Our target audience didn&rsquo;t understand if the SEO information was automatically generated with the existing content. How the preview, its updated or the adjacent indicators could help understand better the existing results and what needs to be changed?</li> </ol> <h2>Recruiting test participants</h2> <p>It was important to test Drupal CMS with people representing the target audience; therefore, we specifically recruited participants from marketing and communication backgrounds who were familiar with creating content. All participants worked for Higher Education institutions.<br> To ensure we maximised the opportunity to learn from the participants and to use their time most efficiently, in some cases, we asked participants to complete multiple tests. All tests were completed online over Zoom.</p> <h2>Designing and running the tests</h2> <p>We designed a specific test, including a scenario and associated content creation and publication tasks for participants to complete, to enable us to learn about how well the system supported them in the content creation process. Participants were asked to imagine they worked for a university which was hosting a photography exhibition, and they wanted to publish content to advertise the exhibition using text and an image supplied. They were asked to ensure the content could be accessed by everyone, including those using assistive technologies (to prompt the use of accessibility tools) and to ensure that the content had the best chance of being found by search engines (to prompt the use of SEO tools).<br> To ensure a consistent approach, the Acquia Drupal CMS trial environment was used for each of the tests, with participants using the environment themselves (using a special test log-in) where we pre-enabled the Accessibility and SEO recipes. Materials required to complete the content creation tasks were supplied to the participants in a Google document.</p> <h3>Stage 1: Dashboard: How would you publish details of an exhibition? (using text and image supplied)</h3> <p>To start the test, participants were introduced to the Drupal CMS dashboard and asked to look around and say they would go if they wanted to publish content.</p> <h4>Stage 1 Results: Some participants chose the left-hand menu create options, others chose the top tasks &lsquo;Create content&rsquo; option</h4> <p>Most participants took the path of using the create content options to create an event to populate with the text and image supplied. One participant first chose to check the menu structure to ascertain where they would publish the content before starting to create it. All were able to successfully follow the creation of the event through to publication. In doing so they copied and pasted the text content from the materials supplied. </p> <h3>Stage 2: As you&rsquo;re working through, how would you make sure the content you are publishing is accessible? </h3> <p>The text supplied included an error in the headings hierarchy - it contained text with a level 2 heading and beneath this text under a level 4 heading - therefore skipping level 3. When this was pasted in by the participants, the error in the text prompted the accessibility tool indicator (in the form of a yellow question mark) to appear in the body text field The accessibility tool typically appears as two yellow indicators in the interface, the first a question mark alongside the accessibility error, and the second a small bar containing multiple icons at the bottom right of the content window (as in the screenshot below)</p> <p><img src="https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2025-04-02/user-tests-accessibility.png" alt="Example of the current UI"></p> <h4>Stage 2 Results: Participants did not know what the accessibility indicator was for but when prompted, used the tool to correct accessibility errors </h4> <p>One participant corrected the heading hierarchy error before pasting the text in, meaning the accessibility indicators did not appear. Other participants were not sure what the indicators meant. Representative comments:<br> <em>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t see anywhere to add in accessibility&rdquo;</em> (participant 2)<br> <em>&ldquo;As a user I don&rsquo;t really know what this is for&rdquo; </em> </p><p>When they were asked about the indicators, or asked how they would make the content accessible, participants took action to click into the indicators to find out more. In doing so, they recognised that the tool was showing accessibility errors, were able to easily correct the issues, and commented favourabiy on the usefulness of the tool. Representative comments:<br> <em>&ldquo;It is useful to do accessibility on the page - I don&rsquo;t have to go to another platform like Siteimprove to find out&rdquo;</em> (participant 1)<br> <em>&ldquo;I like that it&rsquo;s just here and it&rsquo;s super clear what you need to do, and then it goes away as soon as you have done it you don&rsquo;t have to do manual checks or anything&rdquo;</em> (participant 2)</p> <p>However, one participant initially found the accessibility indicators frustrating before fully understanding the tool. Their initial complaints were twofold:</p> <ul> <li>The indicator was in their way as they worked.</li> <li>The pop-up contained too much information, which they didn&rsquo;t want to read since their job wasn&rsquo;t focused on fixing accessibility issues.</li> </ul> <p>After engaging with the tool, they were able to use it effectively, but this initial reaction suggests a potential improvement in making the tool feel less intrusive and presenting information in a more digestible way.</p> <p>Additionally, one participant pasted in a URL without link text and the accessibility checker flagged this as a problem and explained the impact for people using assistive technologies, with a suggestion of how to fix the problem and a link to the WebAIm website for more information. The participant felt this was useful, but was a bit overwhelmed with the information on the WebAim site. Representative comment:<br> &ldquo;<em>I like that it tells you how the screen reader is going to do it as that is often difficult for people to wrap their heads around</em>&rdquo; (participant 3)</p> <h3>Stage 3: As you&rsquo;re working through, how would you make sure the content you are publishing can be found by search engines? </h3> <p>When presented with the initial test scenario, participants were asked to ensure the published content was findable with search engines. As they moved through the publication process they were prompted to think about how they would achieve this.<br> Drupal CMS contains an SEO tool integrated within the content fields. When users access these SEO fields they are prompted to fill in information such as &lsquo;Focus keyword&rsquo;. &lsquo;SEO title&rsquo; and &lsquo;SEO description&rsquo; and, using the data input into these fields together with the rest of the data input to the content type fields, the SEO tool awards a score and offers recommendations for SEO improvement (as in the screenshot below)</p> <p><img src="https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2025-04-02/user-test-SEO.png" alt="Emaple of the SEO UI"></p> <h4>Stage 3: Results: Participants found the SEO tools by scrolling but some were unclear of action to take to improve their content for SEO </h4> <p>The SEO tools were located at the bottom of the fields, therefore participants did not know they were there until they were prompted to look for them. Representative comment:<br> &ldquo;<em>There is a lot of scrolling. Don&rsquo;t know whether having a summary of the fields at the top might be useful for users to know what is going to be on the page for them</em>&rdquo; (participant 3)</p> <p>Once they found the SEO fields, participants read the details of the SEO analysis but seemed unclear of the action to take to improve content that was scored &lsquo;Bad&rsquo; or &lsquo;Okay&rsquo; to &lsquo;Good&rsquo;. Some participants seemed uncertain of how to undertake SEO content improvement through actions like choosing appropriate focus keywords and writing meta descriptions. Participant 2 tried to find the meta description in the Configuration menu option, thinking it was a synonym for &lsquo;Metatag&rsquo;. Participant 3 began confused but then experimented with making changes and seeing how the rating changed to grow an understanding of ways to achieve good SEO for content. </p> <p>Representative comments:<br> &ldquo;<em>This SEO section - there is more you can get wrong [compared to accessibility] and it is not as straightforward what you need to fix</em>&rdquo; (participant 2)<br> &ldquo;<em>Bad snippet preview - not really sure what this is telling me</em>&rdquo; (participant 3)<br> &ldquo;<em>So this confuses me a bit - does it mean if I share this page it will share the title that I put here [in the SEO section] or is this purely back-end metadata that just makes it more searchable and findable?</em>&rdquo; (participant 3)<br> &ldquo;<em>SEO title is wider than the viewable limit - so that&rsquo;s telling me that this title is too long?</em>&rdquo;(participant 3)</p>