Moodle 4.0 navigation improvements

Update general Moodle navigation
Project state	In progress
Tracker issue	MDL-69588 (epic)
Discussion
Assignee	Team Alpha

Introduction

With the incoming release of Moodle 4.0, it is our desire to improve the user experience surrounding the navigation of courses, modules and other key areas by reducing the cognitive load upon users when navigating. These improvements will only be made to the existing primary Moodle theme: Boost. Whilst the primary focus is upon Boost it is our goal that the theme Classic will retain its current functionality. The overall aim of this project is to create a simplified navigation hierarchy where:

• Users no longer feel overwhelmed by numerous pathways to get to a single destination
• Navigation pathways follow common patterns all throughout Moodle
• Navigation options presented to the user are contextually relevant; so that users intuitively and quickly learn how to get to where they need to be
• Navigation has a consistent look and feel between desktop sized viewports & mobile sized viewports

The focus of this project is on the student and teacher navigation experience.

Prototype / mock-ups

More to come...

User stories

These are the user stories that this project aims to address.

For the student

Student user stories	Acceptance criteria / confirmation
As a learner, I want to easily find the menu item, so that I can move between courses and activities.	I should be able to easily see my list of courses in a predictable place and be able to jump from one course to another at speed.
As a learner, I want to view my grades within a course, so that I can review my grades or find actionable items	Within the course context I should be able to click straight through to my grade overview
As a learner, I can want to view my grades for a forum activity, so that I can discover if my participation is satisfactory	Within a forum activity I should still have the ability to view my grade using the existing forum grading functionality

For the course creator / teacher

Course creator / teacher user stories	Acceptance criteria / confirmation
As a teacher, I want to easily find the menu item, so that I can move between courses and activities	I should be able to easily see my list of courses in a predictable place and be able to jump from one course to another at speed
As a teacher, I want to edit a courses' settings, so that I can improve my learners experience	I should be able to within a course context easily go to my courses’ settings and make changes
As a teacher, I want to easily edit a course module, so that I can deliver my course content in my preferred method	Within a course module, I should be able to easily navigate to the module settings to make required changes
As a teacher, I want to view the reports for a course, so that I can any actionable items	Within a course I should be able to easily navigate to the reporting area within a course
As a teacher, I can quickly find an overview of learners' grades, so that I can find learners to assist	As a teacher I can quickly find the learners grades without getting lost
As a teacher, I can need to grade a learners forum activity, so that I can provide my learners with feedback on their activity	Within a forum module instance I can open the forum grading functionality and grade users’ participation within the forum
As a teacher, I can turn editing on within a course, so that I can add new content or modify existing content with a course	I can easily turn on course editing within the course to add new modules

For the administrator

Administrator user stories	Acceptance criteria / confirmation
As a site admin, I want to modify my Moodle instances’ settings, so that I can deliver a better experience for my users	Links to the site administration settings still appear in easily locatable locations for site administrators

Common user stories

User story	Acceptance criteria / confirmation
As any user, I can see other participants within a course, so that I can either enrol learners or find fellow learners within a course	Within the course I can easily find a navigation item for participants
As any user, I can use the secondary navigation whilst only using user accessibility tools, so that I can access the site	The new navigation meets WCAG 2.1 AA & can be used with screen readers & other assistive technologies
As any user, I want to see an overview of all of my courses, so that I can navigate around the site	I can navigate to a dashboard of sorts that contains the courses I am currently enrolled in or have access to
As any user, I want to easily navigate to an enrolled course, so that I can view my content	I can easily find my desired course to review its content
As any user, I want to quickly navigate to the site home page, so that I can find other relevant content	I am able to navigate to the sites home easily & quickly
As any user, I want to use the primary navigation whilst only using user accessibility tools, so that I can access the site	The new navigation meets WCAG 2.1 AA & can be used with screen readers & other assistive technologies
As any user, I want to navigate back to the course with the navigation bar, so that I can quickly go to a different piece of learning content	As any user, I should be able to use the context header bar within a module to navigate back to the start of the course
As any user, I want to navigate back to the section the module is in from the navigation bar, so that I can find other pieces of learning content that are similar to the current content I am reviewing	As any user, I should be able to use the context header bar within a module to navigate back to the section of the course that the current module is placed in
As any user, I can search a forum that I am in, so that I can find relevant posts or discussions before making a new post	I can still search forums in a similar or identical way as I currently can (pre Moodle 4.0)