Moodle in English: A Plea for Simplicity

I have been using Moodle since v1.08 and introduced it to my school in the UK.

I was stunned by its power and simplicity - a simplicity that enabled expert teachers who were not ICT experts to start using the power of the web.

This is a plea to ensure that as Moodle is made more powerful it is not made more complicated - because this will limit its true educational power.

Why do I make this plea now?
I wanted to add an uploaded file as a resource. Although this has always been a 2 step process, most teaches have found this OK. But this time I got thoroughly confused - when I went to add the file, instead of a simple drop down list, I had a whole range of confusing options (to most teachers) and a new window opened when I wanted to choose the file. It was only after 3 tries that I saw the word 'Choose' displayed on the far side of the screen from the file name.

To me, this is a very clunky solution to the original 2 step process. Much more 'newbie' unfriendly - giving Moodle a steeper learning curve and raising barriers to the average teacher.

I feel the same move away from simplicity is occuring in few other areas of Moodle use.

I would welcome the views of others.......

Best wishes

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 7:57 PM

The problems with the old method were:

- the menu could get very long and full of irrelevant files
- it was clunky to know to how to upload the files into the file manager first

I agree the choose button might be hard to see. Note this is still a development release, so if you have any particular ideas on improving the way a file is chosen please feel free!

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ray Le Couteur - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 9:23 PM

Hi Martin

Here's my suggestion:

1. Call the 'Files' section 'File Manager' (ie the place you can move/add/delete files).
2. When adding an uploaded file resource, put a browse button at the side of the file name box like the browse in forums - the name/path is automatically placed in the file name textbox. The file is invisibly uploaded to the files area when you click 'Save Changes'.
3. All the other options (window size, menu bar etc) are hidden (do this by simply hiding part of the screen) but add a 'More Options' button available for power users (reveals rest of screen).

This would make the process super simple for newbies but could have many options for experienced users.

This approach could be used in other parts of Moodle - and give both simplicity and power.

How does that sound?

Best wishes

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 11:07 PM

"When adding an uploaded file resource, put a browse button at the side of the file name box like the browse in forums - the name/path is automatically placed in the file name textbox."

Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the problem of selecting files that are already uploaded, and it will mean there are two different interfaces for the same function (uploading content files)...

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ray Le Couteur - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 11:18 PM

Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the problem of selecting files that are already uploaded, and it will mean there are two different interfaces for the same function (uploading content files)...

Have the dropdown box + a text box with browse ??

(ie select from list or upload new file)

There would be 2 interfaces, but the 2nd one already exists in the forums.

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 9:26 PM

Just a further reflection on this ... you might have been surprised because you were coming from the "old way" in 1.0.8 ... think of this new file picker as being more like the way you'd do it in your average Windows, Mac or Unix interface.

However, I totally agree it's very important to keep the interface minimalist - feedback and suggestions for improvements in this regard are essential (it's actually much harder to suggest this sort of thing than it is to suggest ten new features

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Przemyslaw Stencel - Monday, 24 November 2003, 9:46 PM

I agree with Ray and Martin that Moodle has come to a point where it is necessary to simplify the course design process for novice designers. As new modules and features are added, Moodle is becoming more and more complex. On the other hand, it would be a great shame not introducing those great new features. The glossary is a perfect example - it contains lots of very useful features (actually, I was one of those who asked Will to include those features), but I do understand that it might seem daunting to a teacher who's only beginning to teach online with Moodle.

I like Ray's suggestion of hiding advanced features, but I think having this "show advanced options" link would mean that the process of creating or updating an activity would involve having to navigate through too many screens.

My suggestion is to divide the options for each activity type into basic, normal and advanced and allow the admin and the course teacher choose the type of interface that is to be used in the particular course (see screenshot). Then, when the admin sets up a new course for a newbie teacher, all activities can be set to basic interface. As the teacher gains experience using Moodle, he will be able to turn on the normal or advanced interface.

For example in the forum:

the basic interface would include just forum name and forum introduction. Other setting would default to "standard forum for general use", "discussions and replies are allowed", "no forced subscription", "attachment size identical to course/site setting", "no ratings".
the normal interface would additionally have the options to set forum type, pupil posting to forum and force subscription.
the advanced interface would include all the remaining features (ratings and upload size)

Note that in the screenshot not all activity types have all interface options, e.g. the Choice activity only has the basic interface, chat only has basic and normal interfaces, etc. The help icon next to each activity type lists the features which are included in the basic, normal and advanced interfaces for those activities.

Of course if this was to be implemented, we'd have to decide which features should be in which interface (for each activity type).

What do others think?

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Marilyn Fleming - Monday, 24 November 2003, 10:26 PM

AMEN to the simlicity concept!!!

Where I will be using it, both students and teachers are not only computer novices, but computer-phobes.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ger Tielemans - Tuesday, 25 November 2003, 12:34 AM

It would be a great mistake to make different views for different users: The product BSCW did this by creating an interface for beginners and one for advanced people...
...it became a disaster for the poor users: You are looking in beginners view and your collab-partner is using the advanced interface for the same Moodle?...

What then:

- It is better to stay as close as possible to the functionality of a normal webbrowser
- reread the old books about the design principles behind (windows)interfaces like "Common user access panel design and user interaction" IBM 1988

to give an example:
#If you choose in the quiz a categorie you expect that it would show the category, NOT THAT YOU MUST PUSH THE BUTTON "show it", even when this button is next to the list. Users hesitate always on this point.

#Another point in quiz is that you must not design against the users (bad)habbits: a beginner wants to create a test, and then first has to fill categories, before he is allowed to create that test: they do not like/understand that, until you explain them the reason of reuse and they will understand.
Write a manual? mmm, i still have that small manual for AMIPRO: "manual for the users who don't read manuals.."

USE THAT DAMN QUIESTION BUTTON!! (me too) ..same story...

(Redesign it? Possible? analyse their behavior and allow them to create questions first and then ask them to call/create the category to store these questions.. ..and then also create the option to replace questions to other or new categories. etc..)

Of course is it a good habbit to look at beginners and see where they hesitate: could be a clou for a design flaw.

- Also you must compare all the screens that now are growing on top of Moodle which seem to have "almost the same functionality" and try to normalise the differences as much as possible: choose one approach for all. And if you do not follow the webbrowser functionality? again ask BSCW-users..

- Do not hide options on forms for beginning users but introduce a button for "back to default settings" and let every fill-in-form pop-up in that default position.

- Some modules ARE complex,so be wise as a beginner and do not begin with these, get first comfortable will the Moodle idea.
Not only the interface must be learned, but also the way you have to (re)think wished student behavior and how you can/try to regulate that by this complex tool: visual metaphors like the tabs-interface can here be a big help..

==================================================
So:
- Build an expertsystem and you must be an expert to handle it
- Make a system idiot-proof and only idiots will use it
- OR Moodle somewhere in between

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ray Le Couteur - Tuesday, 25 November 2003, 6:21 AM

'Make a system idiot-proof and only idiots will use it' - that's the problem exactly: I know highly experienced and talented teachers of English, Geography etc who are effectively ICT 'idiots'. My plea is on their behalf!! Why should ICT be the domain of experts?

I agree that we should not limit user options - we should simply offer choice: below I show the simple upload resource screen from version 1.09 (with an added 'View More Options' button) and below it the current screen.

Why can't we see the simple screen first (default options set) and choose the more options if we wish?

Our aim for Moodle is surely to provide the best experience for all - BUT novices now are the experienced users of the future. For so long the web has been the domain of the ICT expert - if we make software complicated it will remain so for a long time.

Manuals: Most teachers do not have the time (or desire ) to read manuals (even simple ones). They read their Geography or History books, but they have tend not to read ICT books! They want it to 'work out of the box' - and good, well designed software should.

"- Some modules ARE complex, so be wise as a beginner and do not begin with these, get first comfortable will the Moodle idea" - that's the problem; beginners are not wise. They don't know where to begin and school time is not available for extensive training. Teachers will be mostly self taught.

So please don't dismiss the idea. There is a problem here (though its not just a Moodle one). We should try to address it.

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ger Tielemans - Tuesday, 25 November 2003, 6:47 PM

I see, nothing wrong with your "see more options" (There I can overrule the defaults)

So yes, I like your proposal for simplefying in this direction

Should Martin start an idiotproof-user-interface-redesign-group? (The way they did with the new logo, your draft could be the first one in the forum. Or even better: start a dictionary with redesign proposals organised in interface-categories-from-M? )

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Przemyslaw Stencel - Tuesday, 25 November 2003, 7:57 PM

However, in the case of this "view more options" button, it's the more advanced users who will be disadvantaged. Once a user has learned the basics of Moodle, he will want to use the advanced options most of the time, without having to click on this button every time he adds an activity. Therefore, if this is implemented, there should be a way for power users to disable this "view more options" button and have all options available at once.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ger Tielemans - Tuesday, 25 November 2003, 10:31 PM

A checkbox on your personal settings-page? (But You as user decide...)

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ray Le Couteur - Wednesday, 26 November 2003, 1:31 AM

Have 'View More Options' on basic screen, 'View Basic Options' on full (expert screen) and have Moodle remember your most recent choice as a database entry.

This requires no action or choice by user.

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Przemyslaw Stencel - Thursday, 15 January 2004, 7:32 PM

it's very important to keep the interface minimalist - feedback and suggestions for improvements in this regard are essential

Just a small suggestion - do we really need the "Show" and "Create new question" buttons? I think these actions could be triggered by selecting one of the options from the drop-down lists (the way activities are added to topics). This would make the interface less cluttered and would reduce the number of clicks required to perform a task.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Thursday, 15 January 2004, 11:26 PM

Been annoying me too, that one. Fixed in CVS.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Gustav W Delius - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 9:13 PM

I think your plea for simplicity of the user interface falls on very open ears in the Moodle community. Martin has always insisted that a lot of thought should go into the user interface for every new feature going into Moodle. And this has paid off in the user friendliness that everyone immediately notices when they start to use Moodle.

In some cases it is really difficult to come up with a solution that is simple enough. I think in those cases it would be useful to have a sentence of explanation on the page. So in the example that you give concerning the uploaded file resource you may want to put a sentence at the top of the pop-up file manager window telling the user what to do. I know that the usual Moodle thing would be to simply put a question mark icon linking to a pop-up help. However I believe that sometimes it would be better to put the help right on the page.

All that needs to be done for that is:

1) put the following in line 88 of cvs:/moodle/mod/resource/coursefiles.php

echo get_string("helpupload","resource");

2) put the following line into the resource.php file in the language directory you are using, for example cvs:/moodle/lang/en/resource.php

$string['helpupload'] = '';

where between the last pair of single quotes you can put any explanatory sentence you like.

I am beginning to warm to this idea: How about having a new option for every user "Show extra help on some Moodle pages" and a new function print_help which prints a string if the user has chosen the option and prints nothing otherwise? If we have something like this in place we could help new users without cluttering the screens of advanced users with unnecessary help.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 9:39 PM

This help suggestion is exactly how help used to work in an early Moodle prototype.

Next to the "turn editing on" button was a "turn help on" button, and it would embed help text in the page. In practice, though, it wasn't that useful - I think because users were learning the wrong interface. For this specific case, though, I agree it could be useful. There was another case like this for the quiz editing screen.

For complete novices to "get the feel" of Moodle I think the upcoming tutorial course will be a useful thing. It would also help to further standardise a number of interface elements and layouts between some of the modules.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Ray Le Couteur - Sunday, 23 November 2003, 11:11 PM

Some help buttons (especially in the files area) would certainly help.

It might also help if the edit/rename options were hidden when you access 'files' via the resource upload (ie show only 'Choose').

I still think that the multiple options on upload:

Allow the window to be resized
Allow the window to be scrolled
Show the directory links
Show the location bar
Show the menu bar
Show the toolbar
Show the status bar
Default window width (in pixels)
Default window height (in pixels)

are scary for any newbie.

If there was a tickbox on the previous summary screen ('show advanced options'), then these could be hidden for less experienced users - very easy to code?

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by John Gone - Wednesday, 26 November 2003, 9:26 AM

How about using a quiz for new users? Their score on the "Introduction to Moodle"quiz would then trigger a recommendation to use advanced or basic functions. Exposure to the quiz may make new users want to learn more so they can jump up to advanced user level.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Wednesday, 26 November 2003, 10:16 AM

Pardon me guys, but a lot of this doesn't sound that simple.

Not with new options everywhere and pages that change depending on user settings.

Perhaps all we need to do is rearrange some of the forms to clearly indicate required and optional items.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by Ray Le Couteur - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 1:58 AM

Here is a simple example of the sort of problem I associate with too many options:

Recipe for confusion:

1. Teacher decides to create a web link.
2. Presented with many options he mostly doesn't understand.
3. Accepts default options - no menu bar; no toolbar. Probably expects a normal IE window.
4. Student clicks link; and then another link in the new window - unable to go back as there is no toolbar.

Result: confused teacher, confused student and a query about problems with Moodle to me last week (this is a REAL example).

In a reality this is possibly more to do with choosing defaults with the least potential for confusion (rather than using any other criteria for defaults).

Your thoughts Martin?

Best wishes

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by John Gone - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 2:39 AM

Hi Ray,
Temporary fix may be to edit the language file to something like this

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by Tom Murdock - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 3:33 AM

I think this is a great suggestion. Thanks, John.

I've always felt more comfortable writing in Moodle because of the careful way that Martin has encouraged me to try things out. Whenever we can better describe functionality, rather than remove functionality, I think we'll be better off.

-Tom

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by John Gone - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 1:00 PM

You're welcome Tom,
Yeah, you've recognized those words no doubt. I was trying to reinforce the point Martin was making when he wrote those words in the help docs. I agree Tom, that's one of the strengths of Moodle, usability and encouragement to experiment and learn by using it, knowing that you can't really hurt anything.

I agree, more descriptive documentation is better than reduced funtionality. Moodle is very feature rich due to the hard work of some very capable, very hard working, developers. I'm a bit of an ingrate for not contributing some documentation. Moodle documentation is actually pretty good currently, with a few exceptions, but severely under-utilized in my opinion. The forum posts for this and any other software prove this out I think.

On the other hand I'm surprised sometimes when people expect to use something as powerful as Moodle without spending a reasonable amount of time learning about it. A bit of trial & error, a few notes for reference, voila, a school at your fingertips. And all for the price of a few cups of coffee, all of which goes to server space and band-width.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by Ray Le Couteur - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 3:54 AM

Thanks John.

That will certainly help though I'm not sure that all teachers will read it carefully ..............

However, I am just trying to make the general point that, to avoid confusion for new users, the interface and any options (particularly default ones) need to be kept as obvious and intuitive as possible.

And that this can be difficult for us 'expert' users.

(I say this as someone with a foot in both camps - a Moodle admin and part time programmer in VB - but primarily a science teacher).

Best wishes

Ray

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by John Gone - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 1:17 PM

You're welcome Ray,
I know some people will never read all that, I wouldn't. I'm a trial and error kinda guy, but I know the instructions are available if I really need them. I think the statement, lifted directly from the Moodle Docs,

1. Don't be afraid to experiment
feel free to poke around and change things. It's hard to break anything in a Moodle course, and even if you do it's usually easy to fix it.

is a key point for new users.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by Martin Dougiamas - Tuesday, 9 December 2003, 10:28 AM

The default checks are the way they are because of the purpose for which they were originally implemented. However, looking at the defaults now I totally agree with you they are not as "plain" or obvious as they could be. I'll fix this now so everything is on by default, and add some options to the resource settings page so the defaults can be set on sites who want to do so.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity - back to basics

by John Gone - Monday, 15 December 2003, 12:10 PM

This is a big improvement to the resource module. Customizable and a websearch link as a bonus. Great!
John

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Howard Miller - Monday, 8 December 2003, 7:10 PM

I was thinking... always dangerous...

Perhaps something to keep in mind for Moodle is a much more modular approach. I have an idea of a much more streamlined Moodle with a basic set of features. All the more advanced stuff could be downloaded as modules. By that, I mean at a more advanced level than is currently possible. So, for example, an API would be available to easily add features to the side-panels on the front and course pages, so (again for example) things like advanced recent activity displays could be added in.

This isn't easy, of course, and would require a 'clever' and well documented API, with more hooks and abstraction at a low level. I see this approach in many modern projects - 'pluggable' addons seem to be the way of things.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Monday, 8 December 2003, 8:54 PM

Yes, pluggable addons do seem to be the way of things. wide eyes

Let's see, so far we have: plug-in activities, plug-in authentication methods, plug-in quiz formats, plug-in course formats, plug-in languages, plug-in quiz reports, plug-in themes and plug-in text filters. Coming up are plug-in enrollment methods and plug-in templates.

Granted, the documentation on this is pretty scarce so far, but the code is pretty straightforward I think.

I guess you're talking about the ability to place Nuke-style "blocks" on the course page ...? You can do this now fairly easily - just make a new course format in moodle/course/formats.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Howard Miller - Monday, 8 December 2003, 9:53 PM

Well yessss....

However these are not the "selling feature" that I guess they could be.

I see a far-off day when if you want a new feature (or set of features), you just upload a "Moodle Plugin" zip file via the plugin page and it just happens.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Martin Dougiamas - Monday, 8 December 2003, 10:02 PM

Oh yes, indeed. What I was thinking was a "plugin manager" on the admin page, with a button to "install new plugins" which downloads from moodle.org, unzips it in the right place and then puts you straight into a configuration page for it. And also a "upgrade Moodle" button.

Webmin works like this - it's very nice. The Squirrelmail folks also have an impressive plugin system.

The down side of complete structural flexibility (apart from billions of things to go wrong

) is that it doesn't guide users into any particular sort of behaviour. Part of the whole foundation of Moodle is that it specialises in trying to encourage certain types of teaching/learning behaviours and discourage others. I would rather see us first hashing out some very strong standard interfaces than aiming for the ultimate generic CMS. Within reason of course - there's obviously oodles of customisation possible already. There has to be some balance between these two.

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Re: A Plea for Simplicity

by Howard Miller - Monday, 8 December 2003, 10:32 PM

"if it must be done, then the computer must do it".... I was taught that lots of years ago in one of my first programming classes

Yes, where does it end? You download a little bootstrap program, it works out what system you have. Downloads PHP, MySQL, Apache, rest of Moodle, tick the boxes for the features you want and gets it all working. Of course it keeps it all up to date too. No trouble, I'll submit the code by the end of the week. And it can be done... I've seen it!

Meanwhile we forget about actually teaching students because that bit's no fun

You can tell I'm a technical geek and not an academic, can't you?

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