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Part 1: Functional Description

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Direct Access to Forms from Wizard Main Page

Summary and Rationale

In several portfolio projects, students fill out wizards that collect a number of forms. A typical example is a resume, with Contact Info, Objectives, etc. When the student clicks on "Contact Info" in the Wizard, they expect to get a form that asks them to enter their contact information. Instead they get an intermediate level, the Wizard Page. It is not clear to them what this page is for nor what to do with it.

I propose to add an alternative for situations where the full functionality of a Wizard Page isn't needed. When they click on the relevant link on the Wizard Main Page, they would get to the form directly, bypassing the Wizard Page. The rest of the system would function as usual. It would be as if they had gone to the Wizard Page and added a form, except that the list of forms added would obviously have to appear in the Main Wizard Page.

Origin

This proposal is a result of the first review we had with end users. They couldn't make heads or tails of the portfolio system. At every level they were presented with choices that didn't make sense.

First, they were expected to go to Wizards and find an appropriate Wizard. This was fixed by using exposed Wizards. Next they clicked something in the Wizard and found themselves in an unintelligible Wizard Page rather than the form they expected. That is the subject of this proposal. Finally, once they filled in the data and wanted to create a portfolio, they were faced with a screen with no instructions and nothing obvious to do. Once we told them to click "Add" they quickly found themselves in a screen where they were asked to make choices on what include with no idea what it meant. Again, no instructions. And because we were using completed Wizards they were being asked to make choices of Wizards and Matrices where only one choice was valid, which seems to them and us to be silly. You can imagine what the user feedback was like after this session.

User Stories

With this enhancement, the Wizard would behave as a normal user would expect. Clicking "Contact Information" would get them to form that asks for contact information.

Functional Details (may be added after community demo)

I propose to add an option to add a form to a Wizard Main page. This would work just like adding a Page, except that when the user clicks the icon it would go directly to the form.

Interaction and Implications

I am not aware of any implications. The rest of the system would see these as normal wizard pages with forms attached.

Diagrams and Mockups (3)

Site maintainer:

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Note the addition of "Add Form". There is no other change, as the forms look just like pages. (Perhaps a different icon should be used.)

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Here is what the maintainer gets when they click "Add Form". The only option they have is to select the form.

User:

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The Wizard likes like normal, except that when a form has been added, it shows. Here a form has been added for Contact Information.

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When the user clicks an icon, and it is associated with a form, they see the form immediately, not a Wizard Page.

Community Acceptance (4)

It was approved in principle in one of the regular Portfolio phone calls.

Implementation

To avoid impacting the data structures, I would implement this as a wizard page with one user form. The only database change is adding a boolean property for the wizard page, indicating direct form access. This would be used in two places: (1) when the owner is editing the Wizard (2) when running the wizard for the user, to indicate that the form should be opened directly. Because it would appear in the database as a normal Wizard Page there would be no issues for the rest of the code.

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Part 2 of the Proposal for Enhancement Template: The Specification
The specification should be filled out once the feature is clearly defined.

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Specification Template

I believe the description above specifies the behavior completely.

Interaction

There should be no interaction with the rest of the system.

Quality Metrics

The primary goal is usability. We don't plan any formal studies, but we think the problems with the system without it are clear.

Outstanding Issues

1) Should a different icon be used for a direct form link vs. a standard Wizard Page? I think that would create more confusion than it would solve, but I'm willing to yield to others who know UI design better.