Talk:Usability/Improve Moodle User Experience Consistency

Olli - Under "Some potential things that require change, to be researched further" you mention Feedback being too technical and unhelpful feedback to normal users - could you cite an example or two to show what you mean? Thanks - Anthony

Response at Usability/Improve_Moodle_User_Experience_Consistency#Issues.2C_to_be_researched_further--Olli Savolainen 10:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Some feedback from Martin D

Firstly, this is a huge topic and I applaud you getting into it and giving it a try!

I think overall you are asking the right questions.

After reading the whole page, my suggestions for a plan at this point are:

• don't start out trying to write a usability book with general principles (plenty of those around already)
• define exactly what a "standard" Moodle interface currently is, with plenty of best practice examples of all the major parts of Moodle (course, activities, blocks), parts of pages (header, footer, navigation etc) and processes (login from front page, login when following link to protected page, checking for new posts, grading things etc) It's not going to be easy because there are a lot of inconsistencies and unfinished refactorings but I and other core developers can really help you to define what the "state of the art" is.
• for each of the items in the standard:
  • list all the exceptions to the standard (eg Lesson module doesn't support blocks, etc).
  • include information for developers on how to achieve that standard (eg use of mforms, weblib etc)
  • think about the future for that aspect
  • develop mockups of alternatives or code if required
  • plan usability testing

(I know this is somewhat similar to [Development:Usability/Improve_Moodle_User_Experience_Consistency/Detailed_project_plan] but I hope this way of explaining it makes your job clearer!).