Thanks Bobbi for helping explain and improve the functionality of the site. I too have found the navigation a bit difficult at times.
My suggestions relate to the use of images, icons and colour to help with navigation. Currently there is some disconnect between the use of image and navigation. For example the titles in the images don’t align with the headings or subheadings. These images would be great for navigation but they would need to connect to other pages.
The image at the bottom of the page is my suggestion for the website design and navigation. I don’t necessarily see a long tab at the top but created this image to show all the possible layers in the site. Perhaps rather than including Week 5-12 as separate tabs, there would be a Week 5-12 tab with images that link to the weeks:
When the user clicks on a week it would take them to a page with the week’s Introduction, Activities (if housed on the site), Week review/summation and the Comments sections. In this way people would know where to post everything and if they wanted to add an image (which I don’t believe right now is doable in a comment) they could post their review/comment under the correct section.
I think the use of icons would help define various aspects of the site that repeat such as overviews, information, actionable tasks and summaries or critiques. In my image I used a pin to signal information/overview, a checkmark for summations/reviews, a question mark for important questions and answers and a lightbulb for items that require participation or action. I included colour-coding to help participants visualize where they are in the course and on the site. I also used colour to show progression over the first four weeks (light to dark). In the best of all possible worlds the front page would be a visual diagram with buttons leading to the 15 pages – from introductory weeks, to weekly activities, to final pitches and Q&A – keeping this page clean and clear and concise. I’d also like to see the removal of the running stream to the right of the page. It adds visual clutter and would most likely not work on a mobile device.
Finally, I included the YouTube image in my video as I think a quick screencapture video going through the site, how and where to post would be helpful for many people.
MTC Kendra
We really appreciate this commentary, Kendra.
From the beginnings of ETEC 522 we have been struggling with the escape from the LMS and the tension between providing an open and malleable environment and one that is more structured. This iteration of the course has more “features” than previous versions and we acknowledge the challenge in knowing where to post that was evident earlier. We also thank the class in helping sort it out in a collegial fashion.
In the background we have been discussing both a simpler structure and a visual mapping approach for the next iteration – aligned with the spirit of this post. So, we accept all critique and suggestions on this topic that you might have. One fundamental question that is nagging at us is whether we have reached the limits of what can be hacked together in Word Press, and whether there may need to be another approach. Another open-ended question.
Again thanks for the helpful suggestions in this post. We invite others, and acknowledge there have been suggestions throughout the course that could make their way into the ETEC Feedback generally, or if you wish, figure more prominently in your A4 portfolios.
dp
Hi Kendra, I agree! A change to make the weeks line up exactly with the lower map you have would be great. I had asked that each week be listed under either the “Discussion” or the “Forums” tab (where the W01, W02, W03, W04, W13 streams already reside) for keeping with the consistency and flow: http://etec522m.sites.olt.ubc.ca/2014/06/18/11531/. This could absolutely be a separate tab and would have provided each week with their own ‘stream’ where their launchpad reviews and comment posts could have been tagged and shown up automatically. Somehow week 5 was either moved or granted the ability to put their topic in the menu and was the only one with a content stream under the discussion tab. Buttons could work, personally I’m not a fan of visual buttons because they are a space waster, and add an extra step to the navigation (might be helpful to others though). From a human factors/usability standpoint, the only resources that should be made large, prominent or static on a page, are those that a user will return to often as a part of the functional routine. The same premise of organizing a kitchen or workspace applies, most used resources should be proximal or they occupy prime real estate for no good reason. Colourizing seems like a good idea, I’m not sure how they can accomplish this easily on the WP. It’s too bad the menu items couldn’t have icons or be colorized. There are actually a few reasons why curation fell apart I’m still voting for a temporary direct fix to the established content stream (W01, W02, W03, W04 etc) or an additional tab as you mention. The problem is by now we have developed a habit of sifting through the homepage and creating and tagging review posts for in categories that don’t show anywhere. I don’t think that reviews should have been separate posts (if following 565M format, they should be made using the “reviews” box located below the comments box on each page). Also in this version of the course, comments were left on by default creating two dialogs on each page, the “comments” dialog directly above “reviews” dialog. Users were supposed to learn the difference and how/when to turn comments or reviews on/off depending on what was needed for their activity. This instruction somehow got lost in the stream. Everyone started to use “comments” since it was the most accessible (proximal) and quickly the “reviews” box was forgotten as it gets pushed down by comments (comments were NOT enabled by default in 565M, only on a per-post basis, hence why we didn’t have this issue then). This would be another suggested change for the next iteration as people can seek out and learn how to use comments when needed. Reviews started turning up as new posts adding non-curated clutter (because they didn’t belong as comments and the reviews field was not seen at the bottom). Having worked quite a bit with WordPress, I could see that the dam was going to break on the curation and had made some suggestions in May, but didn’t articulate my logic clearly enough. It’s hard to describe what you see that is about to happen, when it hasn’t happened yet lol. :
David, I’ve seen more complex arrangements accomplished with WordPress, but usually task analysis is done with ‘newbies’ to the environment to help understand why a particular arrangement of content, navigation or task isn’t working. It’s a really effective method, and can yield great results in a short period of time if run through the course from the fresh eyes (from the role of the student).
Many thanks. Good to hear that we have not reached the limits with WP.
Perhaps you could suggest links or point us to a few stellar examples so we can see how they have been architected and how they present the visual mapping effectively. Good to see models of practice that can be emulated or extended.
I don’t have a lot of good educational setups to point you to and don’t know of a model that’s similar to this class. It depends entirely on the particular aims, whether it’s an open or closed community, and what particular plugins are being employed to achieve different social goals. I’ve seen recruiting agencies running closed communities of 200+ using a variety of different group and subscription plugins to manage different levels of user and access roles. Subscription communities, virtual upload/download communities, writing communities, commerce groups (I’m not a teacher so I’m not experienced in contextualizing this for education). I know how to make a 4000-6000 product site shoppable, or a medical app/community usable, but this is beyond my scope. I took usability training under an Ergonomist from SFU but it was primarily for interaction and product design. She taught us that hierarchical task analysis is the best way to tailor a navigation and content solution to a particular user-group’s needs. I don’t think emulating a different site’s approach would be successful because their goals and aims are different. I also don’t think that there’s a lot that needs to change, just a few key things that lead us astray. Going through a tailored task analysis and doing an error log/observation is a great way to get started. Even having students list the things objectively that they found confusing in a separate forum could be quite helpful.
For example, I think the reason why several groups haven’t fulfilled the pre-requisite CC by SA requirement on their OER’s is because the following is posted on the very bottom of the OER page rather than on the assignment page: “So, the intent of Assignment 2 is for you to produce a web-based, freely accessible, learning resource that explores an emerging technology market. It should be a Creative Commons-licensed open educational resource that uses an Attribution-ShareAlike license.”
When users are working on the assignment and have already chosen their platform, to review pre-requisites they are likely to refer back to the assignment description page, but not necessarily the OER page. The OER page now falls out of the logical sequence for the task they are doing, or it doesn’t get re-read in its entirety. If students don’t see requirements revisiting the assignment description they can get left out. Perhaps not being directly in the assignment criteria, it seems more like a suggestion than a prerequisite?
All good points. The logic map of tasks would help.
Hi!
We designed a accessible WP site for a SOOC we developed for ISTE.
We had to shut down comments due to spam so for the next iteration we’ll make this password protected I think. We also used a Google+ community for our discussions as we didn’t want people in the site they way they are in this course but it certainly is possible to add this feature. I did find this site a bit sparse but we designed it to be accessible to as many people as possible so we limited the design somewhat. In our second iteration I’d like to give it a bit more oomph without losing the accessibility.
http://setsig.com/
As for visuals I like buttons and other visual interactions over text (as long as they are accessible to everyone).
My resume/portfolio site is all visual. It isn’t spectacular by any means as I put it together over a weekend 🙂 but again I think visuals can help people navigate a site with less frustration.
http://www.kendragrant.com
Some have been using new LMS style plugins for wordpress like Woocommerce Sensei which allow for rating, grouping of lesson units, very clearly segmented modules, tabs organizing nested content into single pages (rather than having a large number of different pages) to simplify navigation. This provides similar functionality to this site. For me, not everything needs to or should be a separate page, they don’t need to be exceptionally long resources either, if they can be layered in tabs and accordions resources can feel comprehensive but not bulky. From an information processing standpoint, once a menu reaches beyond 7 items, it’s difficult to relate to and process. Learndash also has a nice LMS plugin solution for WP that uses tin-can API. It’s really not about the platform but primarily the theme choice that dictates the ability to use extended features to nest or layer content though, and this usually requires a premium theme with a multi-site license.
We also explored LearnDash but ultimately built out the requirements we needed ourselves.
Yes, I think that ultimately building the environment that you need by ‘cobbling it together’ as David V mentioned in another post, is really the approach that’s going to work the best. I still agree wholeheartedly Kendra with one of your earlier mentions that it’s primarily the layering here that isn’t quite perfect yet. Also by visual buttons I meant those containing complex graphic elements (not simple icon visuals). Simple text + icon (with colour) is ideal but buttons that are odd shapes, that take up a lot of space, or that have complex visuals are not. There are exceptions to every rule, particularly in the case of portfolios which are meant to represent or convey projects, branding, or to support a particular visual message (like the idea of venture learning as being divided into distinct stages in this case). It makes sense to make visual projects highly visual, when it comes to complex menus presenting a lot of text, using too many visuals can be bad. It’s interesting, but I realize that the nature of an open website medium makes us anticipate content delivery in ways we are accustomed to. I’m not sure if it’s right or good to cater to these in education, but it’s an interesting complication to ponder.
Some general web usability points:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/10/09/30-usability-issues-to-be-aware-of/
Card sorting to help crowdsource user input on information architecture:
http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/card-sorting.html
http://www.uxforthemasses.com/online-card-sorting/
http://conceptcodify.com/
Hi Kendra,
I like your idea of having a week 5 – 12 tab with images that link to the weeks. This would allow us to access the OER’s quickly, and also helps to centralize all the posts. Perhaps the content under the current topic “opportunity mining” could be used as an introduction to the week 5 – 12 tab, and then having the images that link to the weeks right below?
I find the headings: “Bootcamp”, “Opportunity Mining”, “Launch”, “Forums” to be a bit confusing. At the beginning of the course, I also didn’t quite understand the difference between ‘forums’ and discussions. If all the materials were organized simply by the week, then that might have made things a bit more straightforward. It might also be nice if there was a checklist for things to be completed each week.
I do like the rating/star system of Word Press, as it gives us a quick idea of people’s feedback.
Tiffany Tseng