Improving OSP 1
Comments
Hi Sean,
Your comment was repeated in confluence, so I deleted the duplicate – hope that's okay?
Actually, in "5a. After", you will see that the pull-down has an <Add New> option. This could link the user to a wizard, for example. But this is still something we should all discuss before I go much further with the idea.
Likewise, on 5b and 5c, you will see that the content block has a "Remove" link. An "Edit" link can be placed next to this which would present the user with the UI to make changes (either locally, ex: "apply changes here only", or globally, "apply changes everywhere this content appears.")
But again, I didn't want to go too far with this until we all talked it over – that's why I also made a point of keeping these options fairly modular in the UI; in case we can't fit them in this go-around, we can just ignore/not pursue them at the moment.
The prospect of moving toward a DESIGNED interface is exciting to say the least! Here are my comments:
workflow breadcrumbs
The two problems i outline below might both be addressed by one solution, and i think it's a pretty feasible one...
optionus interruptus
When the user is in a multi-step process, it's certainly handy context for the user to see "step i of n" – but within the portfolio-building process, there's an optional extra step in the current workflow when "outline options" is used. In your screen shots above, 4.before shows an example of this, where UMich came up with a form allowing the end-user to specify a heading (probably for an <h1> or something along those lines in the final html).
One of the worst aspects of this interruptive interface is that if you're editing the portfolio, and don't make any changes at this step, why are your only options "Save Changes" (there aren't any changes) or "Cancel" (which aborts the entire workflow process)? The rest of the workflow includes "Continue" and "Back" and "Finish" but here... we're just editing a form! That's not clear to the end user. But i digress--
This interrupt-at-step-two feature is OPTIONAL, and is often omitted (it comes from selecting a form for "outline options form type" in step 2 of 4 when building a portfolio TEMPLATE). It merely gives the XSL developer more flexibility. It is NOT a requirement for building a portfolio. To illustrate that it's not pertinent to naming the portfolio, here's a different outline-options example from our Serensoft sandbox:
step one:
step interrupt-everything-with-form-options:
Here, instead of asking the user for a heading, we're asking for a matrix column. That is, in your 4.before screen-snap above, the developer had included an extra-step form asking for a heading to display in the final portfolio; here we've included a specify-a-matrix-column form, instead. This form could conceivably have dozens of different fields, it's not specific to the naming of the portfolio.
As to the confusing parts: note that the form-option workflow-interruptus includes a "save changes" button, as i mentioned above, which is guaranteed to befuddle all but the most hardy users. In the context of a standard fill-out-this-form dialog it would make lots more sense (and that's really what this is), but in the context of this multi-step process, yikes! This is likely to confuse end-users.
step two:
step three:
For context, here's a snippet of the matrix showing that the user is specifying which matrix COLUMN to include in the portfolio being created (option-forms can be used for all kinds of things, this is just one example using one field – see where the mouse pointer is in "step-interrupted-of-3" above)
So: right now, the interrupted workflow comes from using the generic fill-out-a-form interface when there's a form-option involved in the portfolio-creation process. we've got to make that more elegant somehow. either incorporating it as one of the steps, or having a popup show up at that point to make it clear this is an extra side-step...
portfolio-sharing options
In the normal build-a-portfolio workflow, the third and final step is to specify sharing options – that is, where i specify who gets to see my portfolio. So, i just hopped directly to the sharing step by clicking on "share", but what is all this step-3-of-3 nonsense? One click, and i'm at some mysterious third step? That's confusing!
proposed solution
On the other hand, instead of "step i of n", if we had the breadcrumb-milestones labelled and all steps were displayed on each page, with the current step highlighted, THEN we could drop users at any Nth stage, and they could understand where they were in the workflow context – imagine something like this at the top of every step of the process:
Name Portfolio >> Design Portfolio >> Share Portfolio
And, turning such breadcrumbs into clickable links shouldn't be much trouble. Further, if it's possible to have the optional options-form step be injected between 1 and 2, (providing that the 'save changes' button gets updated to match the "continue / back / finish / cancel" model used throughout the rest of the process) that would be even better:
Name Portfolio >> Portfolio Options >> Design Portfolio >> Share Portfolio
Alas, i don't know how complicated it would be to have the options-form step conform to the rest of the portfolio-building workflow. If it's too complex for now, maybe we can have a popup window show up (perhaps similar to the way the screen-snaps above kind of float over the page?) to let the user know that this form-filling is a different sub-process from the main workflow.
what does 'add' mean?
In several places in the OSP world, there's the opportunity to "ADD" an item. Unfortunately there are two different meanings: at some places it means "to CREATE" a new instance (upload a new file, fill out a new form)... in others it means "to ATTACH" (or include) an existing item to the current context. One term with two partially-overlapping meanings, is likely to confuse.
I recommend we use specific terminology to distinguish these two contexts – off the top of my head, what i come up with is:
CREATE NEW, when expecting the user to come up with something altogether new to the Sakai environment
ATTACH or INCLUDE, when expecting the user to link something that already exists, to the current context
There may be instances where ATTACH allows the users to browse resources, where there's a further opportunity to CREATE a new item before returning to the original context, which is fine. But the two meanings are still distinct, just as the terminology should be.
Other terms may be more definitive, these are just my first-pass, to avoid the double-duty confusion that 'add' gives us. Whatever terms we use, i strongly recommend we use them consistently across all tools.
free-form portfolio
It's not that we're all in love with how elegant free-form portfolios are (far from it, they're not ) it's that some schools rely heavily on them – LaGuardia/CUNY being a well-known example.
I imagine we're all hoping that the free-form interface gets a huge overhaul soon to make life better for those who use it – but for now, it's simply required on several campuses.
default templates?
In 2.after it looks like you may be hinting at providing a set of default portfolios with the Sakai system? If so... This would be GREAT for a new sakai administrator to have the ability to conjure up some sample templates in order to speed up the process of learning about the interoperability between forms, matrix, wizard, and templates. It might even be nice to have a button such as "create sample portfolio templates" for newbie-types to get a quick start on getting their heads around portfolios. It could import needed matrixes and forms, complete with portfolio templates.
If not, maybe it's still worth considering.
I like the direction you are taking with this, Nathan. One functionality point that many of us voiced that I don't see here is the ability from the 5, 5a, 5b screens to jump into creating a new piece of content or to edit an available piece of existing content. It's still pretty much a "picklist" and students would have to go "elsewhere" to do the real heavy lifting.