General help

Very interesting!

Moodle is really interactive, and I know that Martin and all other Moodlers around here are improving this every day. If it weren´t interactive we wouldn´t be logging here day in and out.

Yet for other people (maybe inexperienced with IT systems) it might not be so interactive indeed. I think the  USABILITY-guys could point us in the right direction. Reading about usability, I learned that for instance it should always be clear to a user:

- Where am I in the site? Breadcrums on top of the site. We already have that!

- Where can I go next?

- What actions can I perfom on this page? Here we see each single page from the perspective of ´doing things´. Actions the user/visitor/student want to do next.

- Where is the general view of the site (the sitemap link on each single page)

- Where can I start over again? (the home button)

- Where is the search button (a single search button on every page!!)-

- How ´deep´is this site? Do I get an overview and can I go deeper if I need more information?

They also distinguish several level of users/visitors: first time visitor, experienced, fan (this user is always hooked to your site) with different maturity levels.

These are simple usability tricks and criteria you could use to improve the use of your site and the ´natural´ intuitive feel users have.

See for instance http://www.handboekusability.nl/  Look at the layout. Easy: they practice what they preach.

or http://w3use.nl

And finally, do a test. Go to http://google.com. Go there and ask yourself the first question: what can I do here? It´s obvious, you can´t miss it: SEARCH! nothing else.

So, we ´developers´, tutors, instructors, ´should´ take a look at our sites from the users perspective.

As a business analyst, I would be glad to further help how we can improve the usability of users.

Runy 

The problem with simply calling it 'send' is that it seems to 'final' and there is usually a built-in delay. I wonder if the button could incorporate the delay factor and say something like "Send after 30 min. delay." or whatever.

Right now, however, that "Save changes" button appears on several different screens where it takes on slightly different meanings, so simply changing the variable in the lang/en/moodle.php doesn't quite do the trick. We need a new variable, me thinks.

BTW, "Comprehensive training" isn't an option in our situation. A good interface should be 'intuitive' and Moodle comes closer to the mark than any other VLE that I have had experience with. And, of course, there are all those little 'help' buttons that people don't seem to be able to click on. Myabe they need to jump up and down and say 'Click me!'

Hi guys,

I have found today an example of what I meant with 'dynamic' site maps.

Look at the link below and go to site map. You will see an always updated version of the structure of the site!.

I'm going to take a look of the code of  sitemap.php file to see how it works.

Also there is a seach feature for the whole site!

Runy

http://www.back-end.org/index.php/FeaturesForUsers

I had a similar problem once on a big site (it was a WebCT site, in fact). I needed a button that everyone had to press to log on.

If we made it small then people didn't see it. If we made it large, 3D and garish then people would automatically ignore it (like an ad). I think we ended up working around the entire thing with a login form on the page and even then some people had problems.

My point is, some people just don't seem to read web pages - they seem to blindly click on things without thinking. It's hard to justify this particular issue of teacher names as being "unintuitive", although I suppose it does indicate the importance of a teacher to some people as representing the course. It would be less intuitive for the teacher names to actually link to the course (note the little icons do, because I noticed once that people were clicking on those too)

Perhaps use a different colour on the teacher links?  Or just type a big "<---- click course name to enter" in the description?

Thomas,

We have had this problem some with new users, but they seem to figure this and other not-so-intuitive things in very short order. I am often working with students who have no real prior knowledge of computers, and we are not replacing an online learning system, but creating from scratch. They often click on their teacher's name, and then they get to read the teacher's profile, which is OK, as they then are ready to work on their own profile when they get into the site!  It isn't that they are used to another elearning system.

After at most a half-hour session in the lab, however, they are moodling quite easily! We will probably develop a little info sheet to help with student introduction to moodle for the upcoming school year. I personally like having the teachers' names on the front page, because I think the students should know the teachers are collaborating.

I have heard NO complaints about this from students once they get used to the site. They are just grateful for all the things they can do on the site.

--Mary

Paul,

For the "Save Changes" link, you need to go to moodle/lang/en/moodle.php
and find this line:

$string['savechanges'] = 'Save changes';

I've changed it to

$string['savechanges'] = 'Send / Save changes';

Concerning the location of the "Login" link, I agree that it's not is a good location but I'm not sure where else it could go. I've found that if my students start Moodle with their screen width set too narrow, that the link isn't visible at all.

Of course, if they click on a course, they will then be presented with the login window, so it isn't always needed. Changing this would be fiddling closer to the guts of moodle, however, and isn't quite as simple as modifying the definition of a phrase. Any suggestions out there?

As Thomas explained in an earlier post, changing the 'savechanges' string changes the buttons all over Moodle. If you only want to change it on the page where you compose or edit forum posts, then you want to change the file cvs:/moodle/mod/forum/mod.html, 4th line from the bottom.

For Moodle 1.4 I will this evening finally introduce an extra language string 'posttoforum' for that page, unless there are objections. Is "Post to forum" a good text for the button? It seems better than "Send" because while it is posted to the forum immediately it won't be sent out until 30 minutes later, or whatever delay the admin has chosen.

Paul, to address your problem with the difficult-to-find Login link:

How about having a login block, using Jon's new blocks system which in Moodle 1.4 dev also works on the front page? That would be rather prominent and has the advantage that administrators could choose whether they want it or not.