Visit the site
Visit the siteEdúkame is a startup dedicated to providing online emotional and educational tools for children below the the age of six. Our mission is to make the lives of parents easier: we believe that raising happier children today will make our world better tomorrow.
Edúkame started as a Wordpress blog about emotional child education. When we professionalized our project, we decided to migrate to Drupal and began selling toys and books using Drupal Commerce. Our first product was the Educabox, a specialized pack prepared by our experts with products and tools intended to help parents overcome some of the growing pains children go through (such as potty training, dealing with fears, learning to sleep alone, and so on.) Recently, we launched a premium content subscription option for parents who wish to receive a monthly digital magazine, plus a variety of other content.
On this project, Edúkame worked with a variety of partners, including:
- Neurotic, a Drupal shop in Barcelona that has been in business for more than 5 years
- SB IT Media
- SEAVTEC, a technology consulting group that specializes in system architecture, scalability, systems admin, cloud computing, and more.
About the project
First steps
Our first goal was to create a website that would combine our blog with an e-commerce platform. We had more than 2000 posts about emotional education that we had to migrate from Wordpress to Drupal, and as we built up our product offerings we knew we needed an e-commerce solution that would showcase our products in an intuitive, easy to use way. To achieve this, we used Apache Solr to offer an advanced search to our visitors, and to display "Related" content throughout the site. For the categories, lists, and related content we wanted to imitate Pinterest, so we used Views Fluid Grid + Views Infinity Scroll with some love and hacking. This would not have been possible without assistance from these two issues ([1] [2]).
Migration from Wordpress
To migrate from Wordpress to Drupal we used Feeds Module. We had about 2000 posts, 8000 comments, 1500 users and about 200 products from a shop built with ubercart and Drupal 6. With the WXR wordpress export file, the module Feeds XPath Parser and Feeds Tamper (with some custom plugins), and some (or maybe a lot of) patience, we were able to import the posts, taxonomies and users. Based on our experience, with a large WXR it is best to split the file in smaller files. To create the XML of Drupal 6 shop products, we used Views module. Below are two screenshots of the feeds configuration we used to import Wordpress posts.
Log In & Register
One of the main goals at Edúkame is to get users to register. A substantial portion of the Edúkame website is walled garden content that can only be accessed from a logged-in account. Because there are numerous pages that can only be accessed with an account, we made the registration and log in process quick and painless. The goal for our login and registration process was to keep it simple. We have a single screen for the Login/Registration in Edúkame, similar to what you would see on a website like Amazon. The user types in his e-mail, indicates if he is new or not, and then types in his password. The user also has the option to log in or register through Facebook in a single click. With our registration process, all that is asked for is email and password-- instead of bogging down the user during their initial registration, we ask for more details later on.
Tests
Using the Personality Test module as a base, we developed a section of fun quizzes and tests for our users. While anonymous visitors can take tests without an account, they must log in or register to view their results. The quizzes are all very visual, interactive, and fun.
Checkout
Another process we focused on simplifying was the checkout. The advantage of offering digital products is that product delivery is instant-- there's none of the hassle around traditional shipping processes or providing that information. Because of this, our checkout process is as simple as our login process: we've boiled down all the forms to fill out to a single, short page.
Responsive
The website adapts to different resolutions for PC, tablet and phone. For example, when a user views a post at resolutions below 1024 pixels wide, the sidebar disappears. There are also small changes that occur on almost every page when the resolution changes. This can include resizing images, text size changes, and blocks shifting to fit a narrower layout. When we began the project we choose Sasson as our starter theme for building in this functionality because it uses sass, compass, html5, and has a great built-in grid system.
Rules for sending customer service e-mails
Though using Rules is an important aspect of any Drupal e-commerce platform, we also decided to use it as part of our customer service process. Using rules, we automatically send several e-mails that are triggered by user interaction with the website. These include:
- an initial registration email
- x days from the first registration
- purchase confirmation
- purchase followup x days after transaction to evaulate customer satisfaction
Performance
We enhanced our authenticated users' page speed by using Memcache, and improved overall site speed by using Varnish as a reverse caching proxy. We also activated Drupal's cache, CSS and JavaScript aggregation, and turned on Views caching.
Configuring the server
We contracted with SeavTec to install and configure our virtualization server, and migrated from physical to virtual hosts. Additionally, SeavTec installed and configured Apache, Drupal, and Apache Solr, and provided monitoring, backups, and support as system administrators. During the process we used Jira and Google Drive spreadsheets to log the problems we encountered along the way. This gave our issue tracking more visibility on both the server side (HighWire) and client side (Drupal).
Why Drupal was chosen
Prior to building Edúkame, several of the company's founders managed Neurotic, a web development company based in Barcelona, Spain. For five of the seven years the Edúkame founders spent managing Neurotic, the company specialized in Drupal development.
The lessons about the value of Drupal our founders learned at Neurotic carried over to Edúkame. We knew Drupal would be the best possible platform for our website thanks to its flexibility, strength and the community around the project. What we value the most about Drupal is the great variety of the modules it has, and how easy it can be to get them work together as a whole.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
The Commerce Kickstart distribution was a perfect start for a Drupal Commerce website.
The Views Fluid Grid was used to show lists in an intuitive format.
To make the migration from Wordpress to Drupal we used Feed, Feeds Xpath Parser, and Feeds Tamper.
Rules is needed for Drupal Commerce, but we also utilize it in other features such as sending customer emails.
Sasson was our start theme, as it provides a very useful features.
We need Search Api and Search Api Solr for intensive use in the "Search" and "Related" blocks.
To enhance site performance we use Memcache and Varnish integration.
Finally, we use commerce Sermepa, Commerce Paypal, Commerce Bank Transfer, and Commerce Stripe to provide our customers with numerous payment options.
