Planning and Managing Drupal Projects

Working with Content Types: a High-Level Overview

As mentioned previously, Drupal works by separating content into distinct content types. The best way to determine which content types your site will need is through the site map and wireframes that were done in the UX/discovery phase. Site maps and high-level navigation items will guide you in creating content types, while wireframes and site designs offer insight into the types of content you need to accommodate (text, images, video, etc.), what special fields you might have to create, and how those fields should be formatted (see Figure 3-3).

If you (or someone on your team) developed a site map during the Discovery or UX phase, you can work directly with the site map to determine content types. Working with a printout, or in a program like OmniGraffle, start marking up the site map with notes (see Figure 3-2). These notes should include possible fields you might need, categories users might expect for the content, and other questions that arise from the site map. For example: do we want to have testimonials from clients? Should those appear as a block on several pages, or just as a page? How are we organizing news items? How many authors will be on the blog? Etc. This will help you get oriented, and you can better communicate to the client and the team what the content needs will be.

Figure 3-2. A site map can give you a head start ...