Drupal is open-source software that creates a dynamic and interactive type of website as opposed to the "static" sort of site where only the webmaster can update it. It is a Content Management System where content is contributed by users in various forms of postings and the Drupal system manages it.

For the techno-geek there is an excellent paper entitled Using Drupal: A Web Experience (http://web.net/DrupalUsabilityReport.pdf, accessed 2007-03-24) which is essentially a Drupal usability report. An extended discussion about usability by the creator of Drupal, Dries Buytaert in "The Ockham's Razor Principle of Content Management Systems", acknowledges the importance of usability and the concern about that aspect of Drupal but goes on to give encouragement about Drupal's future in that regard.

The development community at www.drupal.org is large and highly talented. The bottom line of Drupal usability at this point is that while it's a little "geeky" to install and maintain the back-end software, the front-end administration is not all that hard and improving constantly.