Open source projects rely on contributions from both paid and non-paid volunteers. As a project gets larger, there are more ways to contribute. Displaying a user’s contributions is a great way to show off a person’s impact to the project.
Like WordPress, Drupal.org provides a profile page for registered users. During the December 17th Drupal Association meeting, the team announced it’s going to redesign Drupal.org user profiles and released a concept image.
The proposed design will change slightly as members of the community continue to work on it, but I like what I see so far. It’s clean, uses colors, and does a good job of organizing a lot of information.
Meanwhile, the WordPress.org user profiles which are also a work in progress, don’t show nearly as much information. Activity, Plugins, and Favorites are split into sections. However, the main profile page looks nice, uses color, and contains badges.
Difference in Approach
One of the differences between WordPress and Drupal is that the ticket dedicated to redesigning Drupal user profile pages is filled with discussion and contributions. On the other hand, WordPress uses a mixture of tickets, posts on the Make Community P2 website, and comments to decide how to redesign the profile pages. I’m a fan of keeping information about a specific feature in a central location as it’s easier to reference.
User profiles are a common item shared between two large, open source projects. It’s interesting to see the approach each has taken towards improving the design and showcasing a user’s contributions to the project.
What do you think of the concept image and is there anything in the design you think would work well for WordPress.org user profiles?
I like the fact that everything is on the same page. If you use your WordPress.org profile page as your CV or just a portfolio item, it doesn’t help now having to click through all tabs around Activity, Plugins, Themes etc.
Drupal’s concept page looks like a LinkedIn bio page, with all awards, contributions, plugins and more, it’s appealing, provides a lot of helpful information, organizations, contact details and could very well be used by Drupal contributors to get projects and other ways of funding (which would naturally make them much more willing to give back).