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

Fri Oct 30 08:16:50 PDT 2009

My preference continues to be a Javascript alert. It's easy to do, and  
it's exactly what a user would expect. No one is going to overlook or  
misinterpret it.  However a normal sakai screen might be OK if the  
wording is updated. I generally try to avoid making web code depend up  
on Javascript. But Sakai is very far down the Javascript path by now.

On Oct 30, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Michael Korcuska wrote:

> I'd argue that there are certain places where a break from  
> consistency is not just allowable but exactly what is required.  
> Specifically, if you hope to attract a users attention to some  
> particularly high-stakes action then presenting something that  
> visually (and/or otherwise for those who need/prefer non-visual  
> cues) disrupts the expected workflow is advantageous.  This needs to  
> be done selectively or it won't attract attention (we've reached  
> that point with warning labels in the US...they are so prevalent  
> that they are meaningless). And frequent users of the capability  
> will get used to it, over time, but presumably by then they  
> understand the meaning of the action.
>
> I'm not necessarily saying that this is one of those circumstances,  
> but it certainly is a candidate.
>
> Michael
>
> On Oct 30, 2009, at 05:28, 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.
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sakai-dev mailing list
>> sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-dev
>>
>> TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-dev-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org 
>>  with a subject of "unsubscribe"
>
> -- 
> Michael Korcuska
> Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
> mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
> phone: +1 510-859-4247 (google voice)
> skype: mkorcuska
>
>
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2421 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/sakai-dev/attachments/20091030/11c9cfaa/attachment.bin 