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Usability Improvements of the Personal Desktop

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1 Requirements
- 1.1 Status as of ILIAS 5.0
- 1.2 Suggested Solution for other Blocks
2 Additional Information
3 Discussion
4 Implementation

1 Requirements

Initial but outdated version of the requirements

Currently only some of the entries in the dropdown menue of the Personal Dektop are represented by blocks on the Overview screen. What is represented as a block and what not is a bit haphazard.

All entries should be representable as blocks. THis would include for example Portfolio, My Competencies, My Workspace and the others.
Administrators should be able to configure what blocks do get displayed on the Overview screen.
All screens that can be reached from the dropdown menue Personal Desktop should bear Permanent Links so they can be used by the Main Menu Plugin for example.

The main requirement is to be able to configure which blocks are displayed on the Personal Desktop in the Administration. For the time being one can only switch off complete services like notes and we lack blocks for several services like i.e. Learning Progress.

This is important for organisations that run platforms relying heavily on the use of portfolios for example: Being able to prompt to the functionality on the PD by offering a portfolio block.

Currently only some of the entries in the dropdown menue of the Personal Dektop are represented by blocks on the Overview screen. What is represented as a block and what not is a bit haphazard.

Administrators should be able to configure what blocks do get displayed on the Overview screen.
All screens that can be reached from the dropdown menue Personal Desktop should bear Permanent Links so they can be used by the Main Menu Plugin for example.

1.1 Status as of ILIAS 5.0

Entry in Drop Down	Block	Elements and Behavior of Block
Bookmarks	Bookmarks	Block with individual navgation to access content created by the user Elements: linked bookmark titels, folders Click auf on title of a Bookmark opens a new browser-tab wth the respective website Click on a folder woth bookmarks opens the folder within the block and the contained booksmarks are displayed
Notes and Comments	Notes	Block with individual navgation to access content created by the user Elements: Linked note-texts, edit-link, path: name of enveloping container > name of object Click on title of a note opens the full note in the main middle screen column Click on Edit transfers the user to the PD section Notes and Comments
News	News	Block with overview on information ordered by date Sending object: Sub-structure, link news title, x of y, Next-link Click on title of a news-item opens the full news-item in the main middle screen column
Calendar	Calendar	Block with overview on information ordered by date Elements: Date, linked title of appointment, x of y, Next-link Click on title of a title of an appointment opens the day view in the main middle screen column
Mail	Mail	Block with overview on information ordered by date Sender, linked subject of mail Click on subject of a mail opens the mail in the main middle screen column

1.2 Suggested Solution for other Blocks

There is no block representing the following entries of the drop down. The following bullets suggest how to handle them one-by-one:

Overview: no block needed
My Courses and Groups: no block needed
My Workspace: Information block, Elements: linked object titels of resources shared by others
Portfolio: Navigational block, Elements: linked portfolio titles, on click the preview is opened, if empty a nudging "Add Portfolio" button should be displayed, that transfers users on click to "My Portfolio" tab : Portfolios on Personal Desktop
My Competences: Navigational block, Elements: linked titles of competence categories, if empty a nudging "Add Competence" button should be displayed, that transfers users on click to "My Competences"
Learning Progress: Information block, Elements: linked object titels, status, ordered by last status update, how to deal with progress of container vs. contained object? Include not attempted? Include completed? This should block should be something like a to-do list
Contacts: no block needed (quick-link should be offered in the awareness tool) or Information block?
Personal Data and Profile: no block needed, quick-link available in the utilities section in the top right corner: Quick Access to Personal Profile via Main Menue Actions
Settings: no block needed, quick-link available in the utilities section in the top right corner: Quick Access to Personal Profile via Main Menue Actions

2 Additional Information

Idea / concept: Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
Interest in funding: (please indicate if you have funding for feature)
Maintainer: Killing, Alexander [alex]
Implementation of the feature is done by (company, developer)
Test cases by: …

3 Discussion

Comments on the inital version of this article

Alex Killing 24 Apr 2014: I would not support a general "all menu entries must be represented as blocks" guideline. I can't see why this would improve usability. How should a workspace block look like? I think all features should be discussed individually. I also would prefer to discuss the existing blocks and to fix their problems first, e.g. Remove System Messages from Personal Desktop.

I think currently the main purposes of the "overview" screen of the personal desktop are:

Information Overview (e.g. news, course status, ...)
Individual Navigation (e.g. links to my courses, bookmarks, ...)

The bookmarks block e.g. is almost a pure navigation feature. Like the tagging and the "add to desktop" feature, its main purpose is to bookmark and organise links/resources. But I think we should think of ways to improve their use. Do users really open the personal desktop overview, look for their bookmarks block, open a folder and click on a link to navigate? Same with the tags. The discussion Revision of Add to Desktop Feature fits into this, too.

I think we should add more focused feature wiki page for the different ideas. I support the idea that all blocks can be (de-)activated in the administration. The permanent links to personal desktop screens should also be separated in my opinion.

JF 26 May 2014: We do not want to introduce a general rule like "All entries should be representable as blocks". We also think it is a good starting point to discuss navigation and information items separately. Information items could be kept on the PD as blocks, for navigation features a different user interface approach could be discussed. We should try to identify possible incremental implementation steps and decide on them.

4 Implementation

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Last edited: 6. Sep 2015, 23:01, Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]