The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, J-PAL has transformed how the world approaches alleviating global poverty. In 2019, two of the J-PAL founders, Professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, along with Professor Michael Kremer, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
J-PAL has been a client of Redfin Solutions since 2016, and Redfin provides ongoing maintenance, feature improvement, and strategy for their Drupal website. In 2019, J-PAL decided to upgrade their website from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 to prepare for Drupal 7’s end-of-life and take advantage of the flexibility and scalability offered by Drupal 8. They chose Redfin Solutions for this project because of their trusted partnership and Redfin’s extensive knowledge of Drupal and the J-PAL website. Since this migration required rebuilding the website using an object-oriented programming paradigm, J-PAL also used the upgrade as an opportunity to incorporate new features and re-design many website components and content types for improved accessibility and consistency.
About the project
During the 7-month migration and improvement project Redfin Solutions conducted a comprehensive technical, design, and content audit of the Drupal 7 website; worked collaboratively with the J-PAL web team to build a strategic roadmap to an improved Drupal 8 website; and migrated the website while preserving and improving on current functionality, navigation, and design—ensuring a seamless end user experience.
Back to topGoals and requirements
J-PAL’s primary goal was to preserve the overall design and architecture of their current website during the migration to Drupal 8, which meant recreating 25 content types, 10 taxonomies, over 40 views and nodequeues, and 7 faceted search indices. The Drupal 8 website also required seamless incorporation with third-party integrations such as the existing Salesforce API, meeting MIT’s accessibility guidelines, and supporting multilingual functionality.
Additionally, J-PAL wanted to find a solution for more consistent content entry and design across the website, introduce a new editorial workflow, and make it easier for content editors to find and use assets.
Back to topSolutions
An agile upgrade
To ensure that they migrated every aspect of the J-PAL website seamlessly—and that extraneous or outdated features were left behind—Redfin Solutions took an Agile approach to the project and developed user stories and epics that comprehensively defined the scope of work to be completed.
Redfin met weekly with a representative from the J-PAL team to develop the information architecture for each feature or content type to be included in a two-week sprint. Using this methodology, the teams were able to adapt to ensure that the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) met client requirements and stayed on budget.
Design system management
Redfin's designers and front-end developers worked closely with the J-PAL design team to audit the website’s current design and develop a design system that showcased J-PAL’s brand and prioritized accessibility. Collaborators used InVision’s Design System Manager (DSM) so that J-PAL and Redfin designers who already used Sketch could easily upload files to DSM and sync changes.
Consistent data and design
Redfin Solutions implemented the Paragraphs module and built dozens of custom, pre-defined Paragraphs, giving J-PAL content editors more flexibility in creating page layouts while maintaining consistency in both design and data structure. Shifting away from the WYSIWYG paradigm for content entry ensures J-PAL’s content can be easily searched, filtered, and manipulated.
Redfin also made use of Drupal’s Layout Builder to create templated landing pages. This gave J-PAL users with the appropriate permissions the ability to easily drag and drop blocks and views to create and edit layouts.
While building the new J-PAL website on Drupal 8, Redfin made sure to align the website’s data structures as closely as possible with J-PAL’s Salesforce instance in order to more easily implement existing integrations and plan for new ones. Because accurate data is highly important to J-PAL as a research organization, this integration brought peace of mind to J-PAL stakeholders.
Improved editorial experience
Redfin Solutions helped J-PAL choose the best administrative theme for their content editors. They implemented the Thunder Admin Theme to prioritize ease of data entry and an intuitive user interface.
J-PAL also needed a digital asset management system that enabled editors to efficiently locate, re-use, and replace assets, including images, documents, and videos. Redfin enabled Drupal Core’s Media Library and created several Media Types with relevant fields for storing important metadata. In this paradigm, J-PAL content editors could easily find assets and update associated data.
Finally, Redfin made use of various content states (e.g. “draft”, “ready for review”, “published”), content moderation permissions, and workflow rules to ensure J-PAL had full control over their publishing workflow.
Back to topOutcome
During and prior-to launch, the Redfin team worked closely with J-PAL to train administrators and content editors on new features. J-PAL was happy with the new features developed for their website, the content entry improvements, and the smooth transition. Redfin continues to provide ongoing support while iteratively enhancing the website to meet J-PAL’s goals.
Back to topWhy Drupal was chosen
J-PAL had been using Drupal for several years when this project began. J-PAL’s website is content heavy and is maintained by dozens of users, making Drupal an obvious choice. Some of the reasons J-PAL chose Drupal include:
Salesforce integration: J-PAL wanted to reduce time spent on data entry by integrating their Drupal website with their Salesforce instance to ensure important research data was always up to date. Salesforce has also streamlined publishing job postings and personnel changes.
Multilingual functionality: As a global organization with offices and audiences around the world, J-PAL needed support for a multilingual website and easy editing in English, French, and Spanish and soon RTL languages like Arabic.
Workflow and user management: With dozens of content editors around the globe, it was important for J-PAL to control user permissions on a granular level and to establish content publishing and translation workflows.
Open source flexibility and support: As an open source content management system with a thriving community, Drupal provided flexibility and support that J-PAL needed. Thousands of supported modules and Redfin’s custom code and expertise allowed J-PAL to create unique experiences for their users.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
All modules were chosen based on how well Redfin Solutions determined they would meet client and user needs, as well as their maintenance and security status. For instance:
- Multilingual: As a global organization, J-PAL’s website needed support for translation that was easy for content editors and provided a seamless experience for end users. In Drupal 8, four multilingual modules are included in Core: Language, Locale, Content Translation, and Configuration Translation. Using these Core features saved J-PAL time and money on translating content, taxonomies, menus, and more.
- Paragraphs: This module gave J-PAL content editors flexibility using a component-based approach to design while maintaining consistency in design with predefined Paragraphs, such as accordions, tabs, and calls to action. The module is actively maintained and stable releases are covered by Drupal’s security advisory policy.
- Search API Solr: As a research organization, J-PAL needed a high-performance search functionality that supported facets and multi-index searches for their complex content. This module provides an Apache Solr backend for the Search API, which J-PAL was already using. This module has been actively supported by a number of leading organizations, ensuring it is continuously maintained and improved upon.
