Themes

You could create a theme that closely matches your existing one to minimise changes  - although there are some changes such as the myoverview block on the dashboard page that are quite different anyway (the old block is available as a plugin though).

That could create a similar look and feel, but use newer technologies/tools/techniques/features/etc. That said, if you did opt for a Boost based theme, it would be visually quite different (Bootstrapbase themes are still supported in 3.4 and although they will get dropped at some point there hasn't been any such announcement yet as far as I am aware)

As for making new guides and support resources, dont forget the User Tours feature that has been around a couple of versions now. May be very helpful to look at - it may not save you much (or any) work this time, but if you have the tours created and then change your theme again in the future, it should be easier to update them then, rather than recreate all the screenshots and support materials again and again.

What is the comfort level of your staff and how many teachers?  A smaller ship is easier to change direction.  

Have you identified current issues and looked for possible enhancements via plugins or themes that would help move your organization forward?  Selling an update is much easier if you can offer an olive branch such as fixing an issue or making something easier to do.  

Have you asked students about their experience or watched students go from login to learning?  Is it intuitive?  Where do the learners struggle in navigating or using your site.  

Lastly, have you setup a development site where you can explore and test out the new themes?

These are all the things we consider and look to improve when working on our site.  It's partly why we developed a theme and enrollment plugin. 

I would definitely check out the newer themes and I would encourage you to ask questions here.  The jump from Moodle 2 to 3 was huge! Lots of great new features and a bunch of usability improvements.  

Welcome to the Themes Forum Ann,

I assume that you have started to check out Moodle 3.4 on the Moodle DEMO site?

Moodle 3.4 is a lot different than 2.9 so there is much for both staff and students to learn, so sharing the DEMO site link to those members of staff who are interested, as well as students, will help them prepare for the change of your site.

What theme you end up using, I dare say, will be the choice of those in charge, so the theme you have now may well still work in 3.4 providing that the parent themes are in place too.

If you need help you know we in the Thems forum are here if you need us.

Best wishes with the change over.

Mary

Thank you all for the excellent insights – I really appreciate it. User tours! I had completely forgotten about this feature! I would love to get rid of our clunky old repository of Moodle tutorials – the tours will help resolve a significant number of complaints about our current system. And thanks for the reminder of the Demo site – a great resource.

User login is highly counter intuitive and confusing, partly because of the way the website is structured (out of my control at the moment) and partly because of the way Moodle mimics the look of the website (easy to fix). Beyond that, most negative feedback from students is about poor course design (which is primarily the instructor’s responsibility right now), so I expect on the whole they’ll adapt to a new look fairly quickly. Instructor complaints tend to fall under the “way too many options” category, but I think that can be mitigated somewhat as we set up the new version. All this suggests that maybe a big theme change won’t be as traumatic as I fear.

Your feedback has helped validate my thought process. Assuming I can figure out how to do this, my plan is to set up at least two different theme options (traditional vs. modern) on our test site and invite students and faculty to vote.