Problem/Motivation
Drupal's admin UI (the Seven theme) feels outdated and needs a visual update. The current designs were created for Drupal 7 in 2008-2009 and were slightly updated for Drupal 8. At the time, many of the current Drupal's features and components didn't exist and Seven's UX was not taking them into account.
This has been raised by agency leaders as one of the key issues preventing them from selling Drupal. A Drupal admin UI UX study that was done in 2018 also validated the need for a more modern admin UI.
Proposed resolution
Claro has been worked in contrib to allow early adopters to start using pre-release versions of the theme. Claro is also included in the Lightning installation profile which is used by over 3000 sites. As a result, Claro is used by almost 400 sites and has allowed us to gain confidence that the theme, even at its current state is useful. We’ve also received bug reports that have clearly showcased that Claro has been used on production sites.
One of the key reasons why it has been possible to use the pre-release versions of Claro is that Claro has been built on top of Seven. Components or UIs that haven’t received an updated look and feel have remained functional during the whole process.
Claro has been implemented using the new Drupal Design System which has received feedback in the Drupal core ideas queue. To make the designs appeal more modern, the design system is using a color set that is colder as well as provides higher color contrast. The new designs will also make Drupal easier to operate using touch screen devices by increasing the size of all form controls. The new design system will also cover frontend facing components such as Toolbar, Quick Edit, and Contextual Links.
The scope of this first iteration has been limited mainly to consist of visual changes. Later on, we are planning to iterate on the visuals and add improvements to the functionality such as a complete redesign of the file and image upload widgets.
We’ve prioritized pages that are used frequently by content editors: content entity forms and content list and all components on these pages have been redesigned. We’re working on updating the rest of the administration UI. Progress can be tracked in the #3066007: Roadmap to stabilize Claro.
Some screenshots of Claro
Your feedback
- Does this represent a positive change compared to the status quo (Seven)?
- Does this introduce any major accessibility regressions?
- Does this introduce any major usability regressions?