I've tried, but I can't get used to it and it makes little sense - I really think we need the site home page link in the navigation bar.
The current 20100503 implementation of the navigation bar is not far short of forcing MyMoodle. In some cases e.g. if the Navigation bar is not handy it's extremely hard to find a way to get to the front page of the site.
I can see merit in having the "My home" link as the first item on the navigation bar, by this should be followed by the "Home" (or whatever it's called on the site) link for the home page of the site (of course there are exceptions for users assigned to roles that respect the force MyMoodle setting).
What's more this a a BIG break from the existing navigation convention currently in use for 34M+ users.
In reply to Ray Lawrence
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Martin Dougiamas -
Thanks Ray! This is one of the discussions I really wanted to have this week.
Yes, it's a break with the old Moodle (took me some getting used to as well!), but I see it as bringing Moodle more into line with the way most popular internet sites work these days. When you go to any social network site (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Gmail, etc) you don't constantly visit the "company" home page as a reference.
Once you are a user your home page on that site (and often the home URL!) is your page. It's private to you and you can customise it and make the site more useful for you. Site admins can still cause messages to appear there (in Moodle you would use a sticky block), and you will even be able to force the blocks on it completely if you don't like students having freedom
I think once the blocks develop for this page you'll see it's even going to be quite useful for admins (imagine more admin-only blocks showing statistics, logs and alerts). Teachers too.
That said, there are undoubtedly rough edges and we could add more options to allow admins to customise the navigation behaviour a little more if people really wanted it. Note I stopped short of having My Moodle take over the home page completely though this is another option (at least it solves the two homes problem!)
I *think* this one of the things the long-time users might struggle with most, and I guess that new users and students will find it pretty natural, but I'm really really interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this now you can see it, as there is time to improve this.
Yes, it's a break with the old Moodle (took me some getting used to as well!), but I see it as bringing Moodle more into line with the way most popular internet sites work these days. When you go to any social network site (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Gmail, etc) you don't constantly visit the "company" home page as a reference.
Once you are a user your home page on that site (and often the home URL!) is your page. It's private to you and you can customise it and make the site more useful for you. Site admins can still cause messages to appear there (in Moodle you would use a sticky block), and you will even be able to force the blocks on it completely if you don't like students having freedom
I think once the blocks develop for this page you'll see it's even going to be quite useful for admins (imagine more admin-only blocks showing statistics, logs and alerts). Teachers too.
That said, there are undoubtedly rough edges and we could add more options to allow admins to customise the navigation behaviour a little more if people really wanted it. Note I stopped short of having My Moodle take over the home page completely though this is another option (at least it solves the two homes problem!)
I *think* this one of the things the long-time users might struggle with most, and I guess that new users and students will find it pretty natural, but I'm really really interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this now you can see it, as there is time to improve this.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Elena Ivanova -
I, again , agree with Ray
My 2 cents:
- Going to MyMoodle - /my is good when you already have courses, and you are not that interested in exploring more of them.
There are scenarios when prospective students want to browse around to see what is available.
- We do not want our local users to hit /my page all the time for performance reasons. We provide them links to be able to go there easily, but we do not want that page to be the default one.
I believe admin should be able to choose what that first link in the breadcrum would go to.
My 2 cents:
- Going to MyMoodle - /my is good when you already have courses, and you are not that interested in exploring more of them.
There are scenarios when prospective students want to browse around to see what is available.
- We do not want our local users to hit /my page all the time for performance reasons. We provide them links to be able to go there easily, but we do not want that page to be the default one.
I believe admin should be able to choose what that first link in the breadcrum would go to.
In reply to Elena Ivanova
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Martin Dougiamas -
(Ach, I thought I'd posted a long reply here days ago, but it's not here - rewriting).
I agree this need fixing, but it's not clear (to me at least) how it should work.
For me, these are desired features (actually constraints, in this case):
Currently the tree looks like this when logged in, call it version A:
My home
- Site home
- - Blogs
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- etc
Navbar for site stuff: My home > Site home > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: My home > My courses > Course name > etc
Alternative version B:
Site home
- Blogs
- Front page activity
- My home
- My profile
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- etc
Navbar for site stuff: Site home > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: Site home > My courses > Course name > etc
My home is never seen on the navbar with this idea ...
Alternative version C:
Site home
- Blogs
- Front page activity
- My home
- - My profile
- - My courses
- - - Course 1
- - - Course 2
Navbar for site stuff: Site home > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: Site home > My home > My courses > Course 1 > etc
My home and site home are now visible most of the time in the navbar, but My home disappears when looking at site things, and also the Navigation is now really indented, causing space issues in the block. Also the list of Blogs etc can get rather long, and can't be folded away in the nav block.
Alternative D:
Merge My home into the Site home (with perhaps tabs to choose between them?), so then:
Home
- Site information
- - Blogs
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- etc
This would mean the frontpage itself could truly be customised by users, even more like facebook.com. The only trouble would be how to make sure the "site" page is still accessible when required, and how that would look.
Alternative E: What's your suggestion?
Could really use your input and thoughts about all this!!
I agree this need fixing, but it's not clear (to me at least) how it should work.
For me, these are desired features (actually constraints, in this case):
- User-centered Web 2.0 approach (Home can usually be My Home)
- Consistent paths between navbar and navigation tree
Currently the tree looks like this when logged in, call it version A:
My home
- Site home
- - Blogs
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- etc
Navbar for site stuff: My home > Site home > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: My home > My courses > Course name > etc
Alternative version B:
Site home
- Blogs
- Front page activity
- My home
- My profile
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- etc
Navbar for site stuff: Site home > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: Site home > My courses > Course name > etc
My home is never seen on the navbar with this idea ...
Alternative version C:
Site home
- Blogs
- Front page activity
- My home
- - My profile
- - My courses
- - - Course 1
- - - Course 2
Navbar for site stuff: Site home > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: Site home > My home > My courses > Course 1 > etc
My home and site home are now visible most of the time in the navbar, but My home disappears when looking at site things, and also the Navigation is now really indented, causing space issues in the block. Also the list of Blogs etc can get rather long, and can't be folded away in the nav block.
Alternative D:
Merge My home into the Site home (with perhaps tabs to choose between them?), so then:
Home
- Site information
- - Blogs
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- etc
This would mean the frontpage itself could truly be customised by users, even more like facebook.com. The only trouble would be how to make sure the "site" page is still accessible when required, and how that would look.
Alternative E: What's your suggestion?
Could really use your input and thoughts about all this!!
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Ray Lawrence -
np, not had chance to respond myself but must....
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Andreas Grabs -
Hi Martin,
in my opinion "My Home" is a separate thing. I could imagine to place the link to "My Home" near by the users profile link.
Andreas
in my opinion "My Home" is a separate thing. I could imagine to place the link to "My Home" near by the users profile link.
Andreas
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Dominik Lukes -
I would certainly vote for option C. All our students are used to the idea of a site front page and would welcome the addition of My home as their space where their profile is.
This is different from the way Facebook uses 'home' and 'profile' but in a good way. Lots of people take a while to grok the Facebook distinctions. Also, Facebook doesn't have a need for a front page in the way that a school or a similar institution does.
This is different from the way Facebook uses 'home' and 'profile' but in a good way. Lots of people take a while to grok the Facebook distinctions. Also, Facebook doesn't have a need for a front page in the way that a school or a similar institution does.
In reply to Dominik Lukes
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Mary Cooch -
Yes - I agree with Dominik - our front page acts as our website, updated on a regular basis - I prefer the idea of option C too (though since in the last half hour my country has just formed a coalition government, I'd be happy to go along with option D instead!)
In reply to Dominik Lukes
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Matt Gibson -
I think the meteoric rise of Facebook shows that it's model works exceptionally well. People may have taken time to get used to it in the past, but it's arguably one of the best known sites on the planet now, so a change is not only going to be easy for people to recognise (who isn't on Facebook?) but also moving towards a more social constructionist approach using a model that's been proven to be a success.
A school does need a frontpage, but students do not once they have logged in. All the same information can be available on their personal page (which may look similar). Check out the BBC - their front page is block based and can be customised extensively by the user without logging in, showing that you can easily have the two combined for a complex organisation.
I'd argue that the Facebook model is now the dominant one and that people will judge Moodle caompared to it.
A school does need a frontpage, but students do not once they have logged in. All the same information can be available on their personal page (which may look similar). Check out the BBC - their front page is block based and can be customised extensively by the user without logging in, showing that you can easily have the two combined for a complex organisation.
I'd argue that the Facebook model is now the dominant one and that people will judge Moodle caompared to it.
In reply to Matt Gibson
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Dominik Lukes -
Who isn't on Facebook? I just did an intro to Mahara webinar on Monday to 50 teachers from around the UK and asked them who had ever user Facebook and only 18% of them had. And these are teachers who are proficient enough to attend a live webinar. A recent survey I did of 90 teachers attending an e-learning course showed a better ratio but still only 51% who had used some social network.
I had also done some small scale research with students at a UK college and found out that a lot of them are frequently puzzled in their navigation of Facebook. They could perform very simple repetitve tasks but many of the more complex operations eluded them. (This was 2 years ago, but I suspect this may still be the case). Personally, I am constantly confused by the difference between Home and Profile on Facebook.
So I would urge caution before going too far with the Facebook model. Its success is not due so much to cognitive accessibility but rather to necessity for social interaction.
I had also done some small scale research with students at a UK college and found out that a lot of them are frequently puzzled in their navigation of Facebook. They could perform very simple repetitve tasks but many of the more complex operations eluded them. (This was 2 years ago, but I suspect this may still be the case). Personally, I am constantly confused by the difference between Home and Profile on Facebook.
So I would urge caution before going too far with the Facebook model. Its success is not due so much to cognitive accessibility but rather to necessity for social interaction.
In reply to Dominik Lukes
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by sam marshall -
I'm not on Facebook.
I don't think our students are highly likely to be either (our students are adults, not traditional student-age).
To be honest I think students can probably cope with either model whether they have heard of Facebook or not, but:
a) I kind of prefer Martin's idea of making them conceptually the 'same page' with tabs to reduce confusion... seems like that one's been rejected already though, ah well.
b) I think the site home should have the name of the site as configured in site settings, not the word 'Home'. That avoids the confusion of having two places labelled as home (if 'My Home' is the new name for 'My Moodle').
--sam
I don't think our students are highly likely to be either (our students are adults, not traditional student-age).
To be honest I think students can probably cope with either model whether they have heard of Facebook or not, but:
a) I kind of prefer Martin's idea of making them conceptually the 'same page' with tabs to reduce confusion... seems like that one's been rejected already though, ah well.
b) I think the site home should have the name of the site as configured in site settings, not the word 'Home'. That avoids the confusion of having two places labelled as home (if 'My Home' is the new name for 'My Moodle').
--sam
In reply to sam marshall
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Mary Cooch -
I used to be on Facebook but got fed up of people wanting to play silly games with me or send me virtual beers/bunches of flowers - so I got out of it and have no regrets.
Many of our students are on Facebook even though technically they are too young to be (and yes they have been told of the dangers)I agree with Sam that students will cope with whatever navigation.
If (a) is D then I would go with that happily -a tab to choose from
I agree with (b) above -but that is what we have already in the navigation bar of the current preview - in fact - the more it is discussed and the more I use it, the more I think what is in the current preview is actually OK. I can live with the idea of being taken back to MyMoodle/Myhome as long as there is an easily recognisable (ie with the sitename) link back to the Home page in the navigation block.
Many of our students are on Facebook even though technically they are too young to be (and yes they have been told of the dangers)I agree with Sam that students will cope with whatever navigation.
If (a) is D then I would go with that happily -a tab to choose from
I agree with (b) above -but that is what we have already in the navigation bar of the current preview - in fact - the more it is discussed and the more I use it, the more I think what is in the current preview is actually OK. I can live with the idea of being taken back to MyMoodle/Myhome as long as there is an easily recognisable (ie with the sitename) link back to the Home page in the navigation block.
In reply to Elena Ivanova
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Martin Dougiamas -
Elena, thanks, just two quick answers addressing your two points directly:
- Prospective courses can still be browsed to and added from a My Home type page, it all depends on what blocks we put there for them.
- Performance issues are becoming less with the new enrolments code. I think the benefit of a customisable and very useful home page outweigh the remaining performance hit (note that making students click more through pages also has a performance hit).
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Matt Gibson -
I agree with the facebook analogy, but I don't think it's quite there yet.
Facebook has no 'front page' except when you're not logged in, but Moodle still has this page at the site's root address and uses /my/ for the user's personal page. If we really are to move to having /my/ as root, why not just put it as the site root and make the front page impossible to access whilst logged in for normal users (maybe /front/ for those who have capabilities to edit it)? Note that anyone who has the site's frontpage bookmarked will keep going there without this change and it will really confuse them.
If the defaults are set up properly, this should be OK, as all the information previously available at the front like a list of courses, news forum posts etc will still be there. I would recommend an upgrade script that will check the existing 1.9 site's configuration, then translate that into some sensible defaults.
Facebook has no 'front page' except when you're not logged in, but Moodle still has this page at the site's root address and uses /my/ for the user's personal page. If we really are to move to having /my/ as root, why not just put it as the site root and make the front page impossible to access whilst logged in for normal users (maybe /front/ for those who have capabilities to edit it)? Note that anyone who has the site's frontpage bookmarked will keep going there without this change and it will really confuse them.
If the defaults are set up properly, this should be OK, as all the information previously available at the front like a list of courses, news forum posts etc will still be there. I would recommend an upgrade script that will check the existing 1.9 site's configuration, then translate that into some sensible defaults.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by sam marshall -
(From OU perspective.)
We use our Moodle system to deliver course websites.
We don't use the system to deliver a student home page - they've got one. It's a separate system called Student Home. Among other things it has links to all their course sites (on Moodle), a combined message feed (from newsfeeds on Moodle and from other sources as well), etc.
Nor is it the OU home page, obviously that's another separate system.
I think at the moment we have some hacks to enable this (in theme?), but basically, whichever 'way around' it is, we want:
a) Ability to turn off the 'home page' link
b) Ability to turn off 'My Moodle' (link does not appear & ideally students can't access it)
In other words we want the navigation breadcrumbs to begin with the course shortname.
So that explained...
1) From usability perspective, my strong preference is for your Alternative D (combine 'my home' and 'site home').
2) What is 'My courses' for? Can we ditch that and have courses as separate top-level entries? Courses are really important! And the list gets simpler.
Home
- Site information
- - Blogs
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
3) What is 'Site information' for now? Can we ditch it?
Home
- Blogs
- Front page activity
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
4) Just to reverse what I've been suggesting, if there are multiple front page activities I guess these should maybe go into a collapsed section?
Home
- Blogs
- Home activities
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
5) Can we have some options to turn things off. There's already an option to turn blogs off, which is good, and obviously you don't have to have home activities, so if we did that, the menu would look like:
Home
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
But can we have an admin option to get rid of home as well, for sites like ours where the 'student home' is actually another system (and no thanks, don't want a link to it from this nav menu - although that would be second-best I guess).
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
6) Seems to me that profile is less important than courses, shouldn't it go underneath them
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
- My profile
There we go. That's what I'd do to it.
--sam
We use our Moodle system to deliver course websites.
We don't use the system to deliver a student home page - they've got one. It's a separate system called Student Home. Among other things it has links to all their course sites (on Moodle), a combined message feed (from newsfeeds on Moodle and from other sources as well), etc.
Nor is it the OU home page, obviously that's another separate system.
I think at the moment we have some hacks to enable this (in theme?), but basically, whichever 'way around' it is, we want:
a) Ability to turn off the 'home page' link
b) Ability to turn off 'My Moodle' (link does not appear & ideally students can't access it)
In other words we want the navigation breadcrumbs to begin with the course shortname.
So that explained...
1) From usability perspective, my strong preference is for your Alternative D (combine 'my home' and 'site home').
2) What is 'My courses' for? Can we ditch that and have courses as separate top-level entries? Courses are really important! And the list gets simpler.
Home
- Site information
- - Blogs
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
3) What is 'Site information' for now? Can we ditch it?
Home
- Blogs
- Front page activity
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
4) Just to reverse what I've been suggesting, if there are multiple front page activities I guess these should maybe go into a collapsed section?
Home
- Blogs
- Home activities
- - Front page activity
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
5) Can we have some options to turn things off. There's already an option to turn blogs off, which is good, and obviously you don't have to have home activities, so if we did that, the menu would look like:
Home
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
But can we have an admin option to get rid of home as well, for sites like ours where the 'student home' is actually another system (and no thanks, don't want a link to it from this nav menu - although that would be second-best I guess).
- My profile
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
6) Seems to me that profile is less important than courses, shouldn't it go underneath them
- Course 1
- Course 2
- etc
- My profile
There we go. That's what I'd do to it.
--sam
In reply to sam marshall
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Tim Hunt -
Sam, the theory of how it works is this.
There is a navigationlib, which deals with storing the appropriate structure. I think you reference it as $PAGE->navigation.
Then the navigation block is just a view of that structure.
And, if some organisation has completely different requirements for how the navigation is displayed, hopefully they can do it just by making a different block that provides a different view of the same basic structure.
Of course, the view can modify the structure before showing it.
What we don't yet know is how well the theory works in practice.
There is a navigationlib, which deals with storing the appropriate structure. I think you reference it as $PAGE->navigation.
Then the navigation block is just a view of that structure.
And, if some organisation has completely different requirements for how the navigation is displayed, hopefully they can do it just by making a different block that provides a different view of the same basic structure.
Of course, the view can modify the structure before showing it.
What we don't yet know is how well the theory works in practice.
In reply to sam marshall
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Martin Dougiamas -
1) A quick comment ... as soon as you start talking about other sites outside of Moodle then we aren't talking about the Moodle navigation structure (which is purely about what is inside Moodle).
That's where you use a custom menu in the header, or something like that (eg how Moodle.org does).
2) Yes, like Tim said, the navigation data structure is accessible and you can hack it locally in the theme or a new block to do wierd things if required. I think we still need to work towards a consensus for a default navigation that works for 99% of sites out of the box.
3) The My Courses submenu is to cope with cases where people are enrolled in many courses, so that nav bar doesn't get ridiculously long. Also to separate the concept of courses you are in and courses you are not. For example, when you are in a course that you are NOT enrolled in, then you need to show something in the nav - does it makes sense to just add that course name directly into the list of your own courses?
At this point, given feedback so far, I'm tending towards this plan which is a less radical departure from 1.9:
- My Home
- Site
- - Blogs
- - Tags
- - Front page activity
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- My profile
- etc
Navbar for site stuff: Home > Site > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: Home > My courses > Course 1 > etc
So with this plan, we only have one "Home" in the navbar which by default goes to the Site Home page, and redirects to My Home when:
That's where you use a custom menu in the header, or something like that (eg how Moodle.org does).
2) Yes, like Tim said, the navigation data structure is accessible and you can hack it locally in the theme or a new block to do wierd things if required. I think we still need to work towards a consensus for a default navigation that works for 99% of sites out of the box.
3) The My Courses submenu is to cope with cases where people are enrolled in many courses, so that nav bar doesn't get ridiculously long. Also to separate the concept of courses you are in and courses you are not. For example, when you are in a course that you are NOT enrolled in, then you need to show something in the nav - does it makes sense to just add that course name directly into the list of your own courses?
At this point, given feedback so far, I'm tending towards this plan which is a less radical departure from 1.9:
- Don't put anything under the 'My Home' node in the navigation at all, keep it at /my as a launching pad into the main site structure.
- Put 'My Home' at the top of the navigation block, all the time, but never in the navbar.
- Keep the existing site setting to FORCE all users to see My Home instead of the site home (redirect from / to /my for all users except admins).
- Extend that setting with an option to "Allow users to choose My Home as their default home"
- If this last is active, then give users a preference setting to choose to always see My Home when they click Home.
- My Home
- Site
- - Blogs
- - Tags
- - Front page activity
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- My profile
- etc
Navbar for site stuff: Home > Site > Blogs
Navbar for course activity: Home > My courses > Course 1 > etc
So with this plan, we only have one "Home" in the navbar which by default goes to the Site Home page, and redirects to My Home when:
- The admin has forced it on all users except admins, or
- The admin allows all users (including admins) to choose, and they have chosen this behaviour (default setting)
- You as a user have chosen to use My Home as your home page
- You want to look at the site home page
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Dominik Lukes -
Having just done some Moodle user training, I'm dreading having to explain this to them but I like the idea of admin configuring the My Home behaviour.
Since, My courses and My profile are not under My Home in the hierarchy, I'd probably opt for forcing My Home to be the Home for users but force certain blocks to appear there to feed information from the home page - this would then include a link to the home page proper, but I'd like to be able to configure the My Home so that the users don't have to go to Home much at all. (Assuming, I've understood the proposal.)
Since, My courses and My profile are not under My Home in the hierarchy, I'd probably opt for forcing My Home to be the Home for users but force certain blocks to appear there to feed information from the home page - this would then include a link to the home page proper, but I'd like to be able to configure the My Home so that the users don't have to go to Home much at all. (Assuming, I've understood the proposal.)
In reply to Dominik Lukes
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Cheryl Ayres -
Hi all - a comment from an unknown to the group ...
As well as allowing admin to configure My Home - would there be some benefit to providing option to configure student and faculty destinations separately?
Scenario:
- Our students will soon use a system similar to what Sam was describing.
- Only Admins see the "home page" (master list of courses).
- Faculty use the My function for now - but will be directed to revised reporting portal as thier home page in the not too distant future.
Cheryl
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by sam marshall -
OK, that plan makes sense. You have 2 options (Home = real home or Home = My Home). Doesn't it make sense to show 2 corresponding versions of the menus:
Site Home
- My Home
- Site
- - Blogs
- - Tags
- - Front page activity
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- My profile
- etc
or
My Home
- Site Home
- Site
- - Blogs
- - Tags
- - Front page activity
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- My profile
- etc
(I am assuming that the 'folder' links are not clickable, so you can't just use the Site link for Site Home.)
And where I wrote Site Home it should probably actually use the name of the site course?
I understand the reasoning for 'My courses' as a folder, but it is unfortunate that there is so much nesting in this menu - I'm pretty sure nesting in this type of menu is quite user-hostile, as well as adding visual clutter. Oh well. Presumably, if you view a course that is not your course, you get a - Other courses folder with the one other course in it?
With these admin options for My Home, an option to turn it off entirely would be nice, not sure if that already exists or not. (I'm sure we can't be the only place that wants to use Moodle to provide course websites and not to provide other 'site-level' features, at least not at random.) If that doesn't exist, I'm sure we'd be happy to code it.
From Tim's explanation I presume this means that in our theme we could change the navigation so that, for instance, if you are within a course area it ONLY shows items within that course area of the menu (and not even the course title, no root), plus the 'My profile' link. That would be awesome and will give us a nice flat menu within courses.
--sam
Site Home
- My Home
- Site
- - Blogs
- - Tags
- - Front page activity
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- My profile
- etc
or
My Home
- Site Home
- Site
- - Blogs
- - Tags
- - Front page activity
- My courses
- - Course 1
- - Course 2
- My profile
- etc
(I am assuming that the 'folder' links are not clickable, so you can't just use the Site link for Site Home.)
And where I wrote Site Home it should probably actually use the name of the site course?
I understand the reasoning for 'My courses' as a folder, but it is unfortunate that there is so much nesting in this menu - I'm pretty sure nesting in this type of menu is quite user-hostile, as well as adding visual clutter. Oh well. Presumably, if you view a course that is not your course, you get a - Other courses folder with the one other course in it?
With these admin options for My Home, an option to turn it off entirely would be nice, not sure if that already exists or not. (I'm sure we can't be the only place that wants to use Moodle to provide course websites and not to provide other 'site-level' features, at least not at random.) If that doesn't exist, I'm sure we'd be happy to code it.
From Tim's explanation I presume this means that in our theme we could change the navigation so that, for instance, if you are within a course area it ONLY shows items within that course area of the menu (and not even the course title, no root), plus the 'My profile' link. That would be awesome and will give us a nice flat menu within courses.
--sam
In reply to sam marshall
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Matt Gibson -
Sam, how do you see the URLs working for option 2?
mysite/ = My Home
mysite/front/ = site home
or as it currently is?
Without the above navigation change, the hierarchy isn't going to be clear, which complicates the use of an admin setting as files can't be moved to other folders easily. People who are used to the root url being the site frontpage will be confused.
Mod_rewrite would help, but it's only available for apache.
mysite/ = My Home
mysite/front/ = site home
or as it currently is?
Without the above navigation change, the hierarchy isn't going to be clear, which complicates the use of an admin setting as files can't be moved to other folders easily. People who are used to the root url being the site frontpage will be confused.
Mod_rewrite would help, but it's only available for apache.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Dominique-Alain Jan -
Hello Martin,
I would agree with you if Moodle is a social network web site, but it is, most often, an institutional place where
For institutions as mine, it is important that users get the front page and are able to return to it from wherever they are in Moodle.
I then agree with Dominik Lukes and Mary Cooch about the importance to keep the front page as a Home and accessible.
I also think that giving students the ability to customize and have a kind of "My" page is great but we should also be able to create template for that and push already prepared pages to them. My experience is users needs to have already done things they may or may not customize with the time but not a complete freedom they are often afraid of at the beginning.
-djaan
I would agree with you if Moodle is a social network web site, but it is, most often, an institutional place where
- staff publish courses' material and
- management publishes general and study centered information
For institutions as mine, it is important that users get the front page and are able to return to it from wherever they are in Moodle.
I then agree with Dominik Lukes and Mary Cooch about the importance to keep the front page as a Home and accessible.
I also think that giving students the ability to customize and have a kind of "My" page is great but we should also be able to create template for that and push already prepared pages to them. My experience is users needs to have already done things they may or may not customize with the time but not a complete freedom they are often afraid of at the beginning.
-djaan
In reply to Dominique-Alain Jan
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Martin Dougiamas -
I think this is all pretty much nailed now in Preview 2. Try it out!
For your case, you would:
1) Force the site page to be Home
2) Edit the My Home page to add default blocks you want your students to see
3a) Change permissions if required to stop students customising My Home any further, or
3b) Make some of those default blocks sticky so that they can't be changed, while still allowing students to add their own
Some tutorials / docs for all this are needed. But I think every scenario (from total admin control to total user control) is covered.
For your case, you would:
1) Force the site page to be Home
2) Edit the My Home page to add default blocks you want your students to see
3a) Change permissions if required to stop students customising My Home any further, or
3b) Make some of those default blocks sticky so that they can't be changed, while still allowing students to add their own
Some tutorials / docs for all this are needed. But I think every scenario (from total admin control to total user control) is covered.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas
Re: Usability: Site home page link missing from Navigation Bar
by Paul Raper -
Having read through this discussion, I can see that there are clearly advantages to having a site home. However, there are instances such as my own when I would like to be able to switch the option of site home off. I want to be able to give students access to their course and their course only. I really would rather that they didn't go walk about on the site.