DrupalCamp New Jersey unites hundreds of attendees with varying professional backgrounds to share their knowledge, ideas, and passion for the Drupal project. My first DrupalCamp NJ was in 2023 and it was also my first experience of presenting at a conference! It was a nerve-wracking but fun experience—and since then I’ve delivered 9 conference presentations across Canada, the U.S., and France on topics like accessibility, caching, migrations, and discovery. Fast forward to March 2024: I returned to DrupalCamp NJ to present another session and deliver training.  Eight of our team members ..read more

Universities and colleges are faced with unique goals, challenges, and opportunities around digital transformation. We often hear from folks who want to reorient their higher education websites around attracting and nurturing potential new students. I recently shared insights on how to accomplish this at the 2023 HighEdWeb Conference in Buffalo, New York, where I co-presented with Winna Tse and Vibeke Silverthorne from OCAD University. We showcased our collaboration on OCAD U’s Admissions sites—two visually bold, accessible, interactive microsites that we designed to captivate a creative audi ..read more

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a new Core Web Vitals metric for measuring the responsiveness of your web pages. It replaces First Input Delay (FID) on March 12, 2024, having been previously introduced as an experimental metric in May 2022. This article is a useful introduction to INP for web developers, UX specialists, and anyone else who measures key aspects of the user experience. Read on to learn how INP works, why it replaced FID, what INP score you should be aiming for, and how to diagnose issues with your INP. This article is a useful introduction to INP for web developers, UX speci ..read more

Plain language is easier to read than it is to write. It takes time and skill to make your message simple to understand. But the payoff is worth the work. Why? Because plain language makes your content more engaging and accessible for all audiences. And it drives business success as a result.  At Evolving Web, we prioritize usability and inclusion when building digital platforms. We know that the best website design in the world can’t make up for poor content! So we use plain language principles in our content strategy services and beyond.  This guide explains how to write content t ..read more

The story of how I came to present at Drupal Camp Florida 2024 began in the previous year, with what someone called my “Dharizza World Tour”! I attended Drupal events in six cities throughout 2023, and ended up being invited to several more as a result.    At DrupalCon Lille in October 2023, I presented a session on how to improve the Layout Builder user experience. In the audience was Michael Herchel, a member of the Drupal Association Board of Directors and lead developer of Olivero. He and Amy June Hineline (a Drupal core mentor and A11yTalks organizer) invited me ..read more

Hi there! I’m Jasmin Merchant, a Front-End Developer at Evolving Web. A few years ago I knew very little about the open web. That all changed when I started working here and was plunged into ongoing learning opportunities. The EvolveDrupal Ottawa summit in 2023 was a big part of my learning curve. Hosted by Evolving Web, the event was a chance to gain new knowledge about development, accessibility, UX, digital strategy, and many other relevant topics. What’s more, it was a great introduction to networking. This was my first tech summit and I had only moved to Canada one week before, so I was ..read more

Web developers can revolutionize the way they approach testing and deployment in React Native projects by using Jest, a powerful JavaScript testing framework, and GitLab CI/CD’s automation tool. In this guide, you’ll find step-by-step instructions to help you initialize a React Native project, set up Jest and React Native Testing Library, and automate tests with Jest in GitLab CI/CD. Getting Started with React Native Step 1: Install React Native CLI If you haven't already, install the React Native CLI globally: npm install -g react-native-cli Step 2: Create a New React Native Project Create ..read more

When you dive into Drupal development, one of the first concepts you learn about is Services—along with other concepts such as Dependency Injection, which is tightly related to Services. The concept of Services was introduced after the overhaul and re-architecture of Drupal 7 into Drupal 8, where the paradigm shifted to Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Services have become one of the foundation stones of Drupal core, allowing us to use the already defined services to interact with Drupal. Services are any object managed by the services container. Their main goal is to decouple reusable ..read more

Higher education institutions face unique challenges when it comes to building successful online experiences—from large amounts of complex content, to the various needs of diverse audiences. On top of that, there’s the constant pressure to keep up with competing universities, colleges, and institutions that are using digital transformation to create fresh opportunities.  Are you looking to evolve your platform this year? We’ve rounded up eight amazing higher education websites to get you feeling creative and inspired. Let’s get stuck in!   1. Rhode Island School of Design Any instit ..read more

A website audit is an examination of your site that shows what’s working well and what isn’t. It provides a high-level view of how your site meets user needs, complies with relevant laws, and drives business success. In doing so, it highlights issues that need fixing and areas for improvement.  Website audits might focus on specific aspects of your site, and they can go into varying levels of detail—it all depends on your purpose and needs. Think of it like a check-up with your family doctor. Sometimes you go in for a general assessment: you give information about diet and exercise, and ..read more