Improvements on Shortcut module

What is the problem to solve?

• At first, per ✨ [policy] Deprecate Shortcut module Needs work , the shortcut module is voted by core maintainers to be moved to contrib (7 votes vs 1). Modules with more usage than shortcut, such as RDF, have been moved to contrib already #3273976: [Meta] Tasks to remove RDF from core and move to contrib →
• However, it seems that the navigation initiative could make use of a feature such as Shortcuts to allow users to customise their UI with the most commonly used pages #3311180-21: [meta] Determine how to make Shortcut module more useful and maintainable →
• Research done on 📌 User Research: Survey regarding bookmarking features on Drupal Active shows that 63% of participants on an open survey consider that such a tool is useful, and 60% would like to be able to customise their bookmarks. Per role shared bookmarks seems to be the most mentioned feature from the survey.
• User interviews done in 📌 User Research: Interviews to evaluate improvements on the shortcut module Active highlight the need for the interface to be improved, users are not necessarily expecting that the shortcuts they add are shared with the rest of the users, and find unclear the screens to create a new shortcut set. Participants didn’t expect to have shortcuts when they create new shortcut sets but they understood how it could be useful if the feature was clearer (i.e. marking which shortcuts are copied or having a clone option). Participants have added remarks on the usefulness of private shortcuts, per-role ones, and being able to edit and reorder their sets.
• There are pending issues that affect caching and performance such as 📌 Replace the shortcut_set_users table with a base field on users Active

Who is this for?

• Site builders
• Content authors
• Evaluators
• Developers

Result: what will be the outcome?

• Better out of the box experience when bookmarking pages in the Admin UI.
• Integration with the Navigation initiative and others that could benefit from the feature such as Dashboards.
• Extended and flexible architecture that provides options for ambitious site builders to create shortcut sets in a way it’s clear. For example: per-user, sitewide and per-role shortcut set options. Enable a system that allows contrib modules to provide their own shortcut modes.
• Improved performance.

How can we know the desired result is achieved

• Increase in the usage of the module. Last data seems to be 76.5% on Drupal 9 as per #3158669-23: By default deprecate non-experimental modules that are used by less 5% of sites before the next major version →
• Being a useful piece of Navigation or Dashboards.
• Activity increases in the issue queues around the shortcuts ecosystem.
• Major contribs leverage the pluggable system (i.e. Group or Commerce).

Idea validation

The hypothesis is validated through the research done in 🌱 [PLAN] Users should be able to configure their own shortcut sets Active both through a user survey and followup user interviews that used a control test to compare the current feature with the one provided by the prototype of the MRs available in 📌 Shortcut set default plugin Needs review , 📌 Users should be able to customise their own shortcuts Active and 📌 Users with enough privileges should be able to customise shortcut sets per role Active

Next steps/Further considerations

• Discuss the solution and evaluate the improvements that can be introduced.
• Solve the following limitations acknowledged by the solution provided:
  • Shortcuts must be sortable
  • There must be a clear workflow to edit shortcuts
  • Migration to be fixed.
  • How to handle a "merge" workflow from sitewide/per-role with private shortcuts?
• Research data has shown some shortcomings in the current UX, for example:
  • Copying/cloning shortcuts into a new shortcut set (i.e. the shortcut set is not empty when the user clicks save), should be an intentional action, such as “clone” or “duplicate”
  • The shortcut set edit screen should show more contextual information (currently the title of the page is “list links” no matter what shortcut set the user is in).
• Evaluate a roadmap that could redesign the user interface and interactions as per previous point. This could include wireframing, and further usability testing.
• Update the usage information of the shortcuts module gathered the last time for Drupal 9.
• Some of the improvements such as 📌 Replace the shortcut_set_users table with a base field on users Active and others can be introduced progressively.
• Answer the question “does the shortcuts module belong in Drupal core or in Starshot?”

Supporting documentation

TBD Link to the paper when published.