[Building Sakai] [CWux] Fwd: [WG: Sakai QA] high priority UI issues

[Jacqueline Mai]

Hi Charles,

Sorry about my delay in responding. I've been tied up with conducting  
end user interviews for what the SAMigo user experience might look  
like in a Sakai 3.0 environment.

Is there a test/demo site or instance where I could see your  
implementation of the Javascript popup?

Thanks,
Jackie


On Oct 30, 2009, at 5:28 AM, Charles Hedrick wrote:

> It's hard for me to know for sure how students will react. There  
> aren't a lot of times when a student will have to confirm something  
> in Sakai. I agree with you that we asked for confirmation because  
> the submit button was in a place where they hit it by accident.  
> However it's probably a place where confirmatino does make sense.
>
> Assignment submission does not require confirmation.
>
> I don't see many other places where a student would get a  
> confirmation screen. However deleting a file in the workspace does.  
> It says "Are you sure you want to remove the following items" and  
> has buttons "Remove" and "Cancel."  I can't be sure without user  
> testig, but I conjecture that the current Samigo confirmation is too  
> wordy. I believe if you remove most of the other text, and say "Are  
> you sure you want to submit this assessment?"  with buttons "Yes,  
> really submit" and "Cancel" we might get better results. Also the  
> remove confirmation screen has the most visible item large bold red  
> Remove confirmation" You have that title at the top where it's  
> slightly less visible and it is "assessment submission warning." I  
> think I might say justt "Confirmation".
>
> There is an issue of terminology that may also be causing trouble.  
> The word "confirmation" is used both for a screen where you confirm  
> your action and the final confirmation screen that gives you a  
> unique confirmation number. That makes it hard for me even to  
> discuss this clearly, because the only term I can come up with is  
> "confirmation screen", and it applies to both of them. I don't have  
> any obvious wording suggestions, but I'd call the final screen  
> something else, since I think "confirmation screen" normally means  
> "are you sure?"
>
> However I'd still  consider a popup. We're increasingly using wha  
> I'd call a popup, althought it technically isn't. See e.g. the  
> action button in resources. It brings up something that I'd call a  
> popup. Users browsers have to be confiigued to allow that.  
> Furthermore, a popup blocks won't stop a simple Javascript confirm.  
> I checked that last year before doing it.
>
> On Oct 30, 2009, at 1:17 AM, Jacqueline M. Mai wrote:
>
>> Hi Charles,
>>
>> Please see my response inline below to SAK-17273.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jackie
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Charles Hedrick < hedrick at rutgers.edu >
>> Date: Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 7:33 AM
>> Subject: [WG: Sakai QA] high priority UI issues
>> To: sakai-qa at collab.sakaiproject.org
>>
>>
>> Anthony Whyte suggested that I should include this list on  
>> something I've sent to the dev list.
>>
>>
>> I realize it's late for 2.7, but there are a few areas causing us  
>> so much trouble with users that I'd like to find a way to  
>> prioritize them. I'm sure others might have different priorities,  
>> but mine are
>>
>>
>> http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-17270  - tests and quizes  
>> losing submissions. This one just became clear to me yesterday,  
>> after processing the Nth report from a student claiming he had  
>> submitted an assessment when he hadn't. The final confirmation  
>> screen is probably the wrong design. We actually asked for this.  
>> Students had been doing "submit for grading" without intending it.  
>> As a local patch we added a Javascript confirmation box "are you  
>> sure". Stanford agreed, but turned it into a normal screen. The  
>> problem is that if students don't read the screen carefully (and  
>> many don't) they think the extra screen is the final submit  
>> confirmation. So we have otherwise good students telling faculty  
>> that they submitted something they didn't, and faculty believing  
>> that Sakai is losing submissions. We have a workaround for this as  
>> well: we have a way to recover all the data for assessments that  
>> weren't submitted. I think the best approach is to go back to the  
>> Javascript confirmation box. Students are used to confirmation  
>> boxes, and are unlikely to confuse an "are you sure" popup with  
>> having finished.
>>
>> I have not seen pop-ups used in Sakai, especially as a means to ask  
>> users whether or not they want to proceed with a critical action.  
>> Seems like the convention is to present a normal page - called  
>> confirmation page - that asks the user whether they want to do X  
>> (e.g., are you sure you want to remove item X?) and the user has to  
>> decide between proceeding with the action or not. If we introduce a  
>> pop-up, which is not an expected behavior, I don’t know if you  
>> would get the result you want. Would users close the window because  
>> they didn’t expect it? I don’t know the answer to this but the pop- 
>> up solution might introduce new usability issues that are  
>> undesirable. Also, how would you address popup blockers, which  
>> would prevent critical information from being shown to users at  
>> all? Finally, if the theory is that students do not pay attention  
>> to whatever shows up after they click Submit for Grading, then it  
>> does not matter if the warning shows up as a popup or just a  
>> regular page in Sakai. They would still think that they have  
>> officially submitted their responses for grading without actually  
>> doing so.
>>
>> Earlier this year, Stanford made some usability improvements to the  
>> button label and positioning within Tests & Quizzes. The navigation  
>> buttons appear to the far left (Previous/Next), then the Save/Exit/ 
>> Submit for Grading buttons appear to the right. The Submit for  
>> Grading button no longer has the same position as the Save and  
>> Continue button (now called Next), which in the past has  
>> facilitated accidental submissions of an assignment before ready.  
>> This improvement has not yet made its way to Sakai (at least I’m  
>> not seeing it on sakai nightly for 2.6). Once this improvement is  
>> contributed back Sakai, one option is to remove the current warning  
>> page since users are much less likely to accidentally submit with  
>> the new placement of the Submit for Grading button. Another option  
>> is to keep the warning page as a normal page but reduce the amount  
>> of text and make the buttons more prominent - right now there's too  
>> much text on the submission warning page, which makes it more  
>> likely for users to ignore. It's also looking less like the other  
>> warning pages in Sakai, which might be another reason why it's  
>> ignored. I’m more in favor of the latter option since submission is  
>> such a critical action that it would be prudent to verify that  
>> users actually want to go through with it. I am also open to other  
>> ideas that you or anyone else might have.
>>
>

Jacqueline Mai
User Experience Specialist
CourseWork Team, Stanford University
jamai at stanford.edu