One of the projects we've been working on recently at Moodle HQ is an improvement to the Grader Report.
The Grader report is a potentially large interface which has been a bone of contention for usability over the years. Some experimental options have been added to it to try and improve the usability, but these have generally been buggy or unreliable.
Thanks to some work from Rex Lorenzo and Alfonso Roman of UCLA, we have worked to replace the previous 'fixed' header experimental setting with a JavaScript floating headers system which is cross-browser compatible, and much less likely to break.
This new system creates a copy of the headers and footers and makes them float at the top, left, or bottom of the page (as appropriate) so that they are always visible and that you can always determine where in the gradebook you are, which grade item you're viewing, and for which user.
As a result of these changes, we have also taken the opportunity to simplify the interface, removing:
- The floating tooltip - since this shows the same information visible on the page already, and it is now possible to clearly see where you are on the page, we felt that this was no longer necessary; and
- The row and column highlighting - again, it is now much clearer on the screen which row, and which column you are currently viewing and we felt that this was no longer necessary.
A prototype of this UI update is now available on our prototype server. Login credentials to view the page are provided on the login page.
The issue containing these changes is MDL-46658 and we welcome feedback both on the issue, and within this discussion. The original design discussion from this change is also available in the developer documentation wiki.
Best wishes,
Andrew Nicols