Activity chooser
| Activity chooser | |
|---|---|
| Project state | In progress |
| Tracker issue | MDL-67255 (epic), MDL-57828, MDL-61511 |
| Discussion | https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=346664 |
| Assignee | Team Alpha |
Introduction
Through our road-map creation process of looking at highly voted tracker issues and relevant forum posts, as well as MUA interaction, an update to the activity chooser to simplify and make less intimidating, was chosen.
MDL-57828 was created and worked on, but unfortunately stalled, and did not complete its way through the integration process. There is a substantial forum post [1], with many suggestions and current pain points with the activity chooser. The MUA created a proposal issue (MDL-61511) to tackle the same issue.
We have recently been analysing how course creation is achieved. Two main ideas were tested with focus groups to try and find the best away to approach course creation. With this information we are confident that we have a user focused design that will improve the activity chooser for everyone.
We would like to invite everyone to express their opinion on this improvement. Course creation is a Moodle activity that is fundamental to teaching a course online, and we would like to ensure that the process is as easy and intuitive as possible.
Features
The following are changes that we are planning on making in this project. We have a demo that can be viewed and interacted with. Invisio mockup of the activity chooser.
Our current work can be viewed at [2]. Please take a look.
Larger display area
The activity chooser will be wider and have the activities in a grid format. This allows for more activities to be seen at once.
Activities and resources are now merged
Our research found that the distinction been activities and resources was not useful to teachers and so now these two categories have been merged together.
Starred / Favourites tab
The user can now select activities to be added to the Starred tab. The starred tab is shown by default to users when pulling up the activity chooser.
Recommended tab
Site administrators will now be able to set a selection of activities as recommended. These recommended activities will show up in a tab in the activity chooser for the course creator to view. If no recommendations are made then this tab will not be displayed.
H5P activities included
We are looking at adding the ability for users to select an H5P activity from the activity chooser.
Smart search bar
To help find activities from the activity chooser, we will be adding a search bar, that will search through both the names of the activities, and also the information text, to try and find relevant activities that the user may want.
Other activity types
Other activity types such as LTI will be able to be added to the activity chooser for the user to select.
The information about an activity will be accessible through the 'i' icon. Clicking the link will show additional information about the activity. This will free up space for other activities to be shown rather than always taking up half of the activity chooser.
Third party plugin developers
For developers who wish to add items to the activity chooser, this is still done through the {plugin}_get_shortcuts() callback which is placed in the plugin's lib.php file. Developers who are currently using this callback are requested to now return an ID with each object. The ID has the following requirements:
- Must be unique to your component.
- Must not change.
- Must be of type integer.
It is not mandatory to add this ID, but your items will not have the ability to be favourited or recommended.
