Revitalizing Drupal’s Admin Experience: A Closer Look at the Ongoing Redesign Journey

Did you know Seven (Jan 2011) was the last major update of the Drupal Admin UI before Claro was released? That was nearly 13 years ago, and Claro, while a large improvement, was only able to scratch the surface due to development lift needed to accomplish all the necessary UX changes. While the UI underwent typography, button styling changes, and the existing elements got a face-lift, it still kept the interface intact. After several years of exploring UX workaround how the Drupal Admin Interface could truly be reimagined, a team was finally assembled and a plan was put in place for how to approach the work.

Goals

Some higher level goals were originally set to help guide the team in their work. They were to redesign the navigation, improve the UX and refresh the UI of the admin interface itself, and adopt the successful concepts from Gin. With the announcement of Drupal CMS, the goals had to shift in order to better support that work. The goals were revised to explore ways to blend the system's neutral tone with the new, distinctive marketing approach, use Gin to establish initial design system for Drupal CMS, determine areas of improvement within design system, and to support the Navigation for Admin UI track in Starshot.

Building momentum

We took advantage of DrupalCon Barcelona to showcase the project's progress and foster engagement. Our presentation highlighted not only the completed work but also designs that didn’t make the final cut. Given the project's dynamic nature, it was best communicated through iterations and design evolutions to more effectively tell the story. With a rotating team of designers, developers, and strategists, the project benefited from a variety of perspectives—those well-versed in Drupal and those still discovering its intricacies.

Where we are now

Post DrupalCon Barcelona, the team successfully brought on additional full-time designers to support the project. Since then, they've completed the creation of a Figma Design System for Gin, while fine-tuning it to align with the efforts of the experience builder team. By aiming to create a cohesive and user-friendly Drupal UI, the team is currently focused on various aspects of the UI, including designing, iterating and planning for:

• Admin UI dashboard
• Defining new sections (i.e. Extend - recipes dashboard)
• Developing a user testing plan
• Site tours
• Navigation and top bar
• AI user interfaces
• And more…

This project is continuously evolving, with the task list expanding as more experience builder UIs are developed and refined. As the scope broadens, new challenges and opportunities for improvements arise. The team is committed to creating user-friendly designs that continue to align with the needs of its users. The project is always looking for support. If you're a designer, strategist, or developer interested in contributing, join the Drupal Slack channel #starshot-ux-marketing.

Stay tuned for additional updates as we progress, and be sure to look out for track-specific announcements and developments at DrupalCon Atlanta 2025.