Dream Bigger: Exploring Drupal 11 and Starshot with Elevated Third

In the rapidly evolving world of web development, staying ahead means leveraging the latest tools and strategies. During the recent Dream Bigger: How Drupal 11 and Starshot Can Help You webinar, Mike Lander, VP of Technology at Elevated Third, walked us through Drupal 11’s groundbreaking features and the promising future of Drupal Starshot.

The Evolution of Drupal 11

Drupal 11 represents a major milestone, introducing a host of enhancements that empower developers and site administrators. Key highlights include:

• Single Directory Components (SDC): This innovative theming approach redefines consistency by enabling modular design systems. Think buttons, cards, and grids—designed once and reused seamlessly across your site while ensuring brand alignment and accessibility.

• Admin UI Upgrades: A sleek left-hand navigation bar, customizable menus, and improved workflows make managing content more intuitive. The admin experience is also bolstered by features like Workspaces, enabling efficient staging and deployment of campaigns.
• Enhanced Performance: Collaborations with the Google Chrome team have led to an 8% boost in core performance. Lazy loading of images, iframes, and other media now come standard, improving site speed and user experience.

Mid-Market B2B Impact

For mid-market B2B organizations, these innovations can address key challenges and unlock new opportunities:

• Streamlined Digital Experiences: With the flexibility of single directory components, mid-market B2B brands can maintain brand consistency across complex sites while delivering personalized experiences tailored to various buyer personas.
• Efficiency for Lean Teams: Drupal 11’s enhancements to admin tools, coupled with Starshot’s upcoming features like Experience Builder, empower marketing teams with smaller budgets and fewer resources to rapidly build and iterate on landing pages, campaign sites, and customer portals without heavy developer involvement.
• Improved ROI on Technology Investments: The introduction of Recipes simplifies the creation of scalable templates for common B2B needs such as lead capture forms, gated content libraries, and resource hubs. This minimizes development overhead, allowing mid-market teams to focus on driving business outcomes.
• Faster Time-to-Market: Automatic updates reduce the burden of site maintenance, ensuring B2B organizations remain secure and up-to-date while freeing resources to prioritize growth initiatives.
• Future-Proofing Digital Strategy: With enhanced APIs and compatibility with headless setups, mid-market B2Bs can confidently integrate Drupal with MarTech stacks like CRMs, personalization platforms, and analytics tools, staying competitive in an increasingly digital-first landscape.

Introducing Drupal Starshot

Starshot signals a shift in Drupal’s philosophy: from developer-centric to user-friendly. Designed to make Drupal more accessible for beginners while retaining power for advanced users, Starshot introduces:

• Recipes: Modular bundles of pre-configured functionality (e.g., event management, galleries, or integrations like Salesforce) that streamline site setup and customization.
• Automatic Updates: Simplify site maintenance with one-click core updates, with plans to expand to contributed modules in the future.
• Experience Builder: Building on the success of Layout Builder, this upcoming tool will merge robust design systems with intuitive drag-and-drop page creation, enforcing brand compliance without sacrificing flexibility.
• Project Browser: Search, sort, and install modules directly from the interface, reducing the complexity for new users.

Looking Ahead

For mid-market B2B organizations, the innovations in Drupal 11 and Starshot promise to streamline operations, reduce development costs, and enhance the user experience for both internal teams and customers. These tools enable businesses to scale their digital efforts efficiently, offering enterprise-grade functionality without requiring enterprise-scale resources.

The first version of Starshot is set to release in January, with further enhancements throughout the year. As Drupal evolves, mid-market B2Bs are well-positioned to take advantage of this platform to build competitive, high-performing digital experiences.

Want to learn more or see how these advancements can elevate your digital strategy? Reach out to us at Elevated Third, and let’s explore the possibilities together.

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