Development:Link
Moodle User Interface Guidelines > Link
Note: This article is a work in progress. Please use the page comments or an appropriate moodle.org forum for any recommendations/suggestions for improvement.
This is a guideline for a Moodle Interface Guideline. Comments: developer forum thread
Problem
The user needs to be provided the choice to issue a command or to navigate in the user interface.
Forces: factors that affect selection
- Links take up less screen real estate than buttons
- Links are meant primarily for navigation and users may not expect clicking them to have consequences
- If used for commands, this can be alleviated by having the link label clearly state what it does as command verbs: "Undo"
Solution
Best practice is to label navigational links the same to their target page's main heading (or title). This way, the user experience has continuity: users get what they expect.
For command links, use an action verb. When using command links, the command is mediated to the server in form of a GET parameter. To keep all Moodle URLs bookmarkable, redirect (using HTTP headers) any page, the url of which contains GET parameters that result in user data being changed, to a new URL that does not contain the GET parameter.