Some interesting ideas, Nathan. Obviously you've put a lot of thought into how...
Some interesting ideas, Nathan.
Obviously you've put a lot of thought into how users can customize their experience, but what about those universities who want a very fixed layout for their students? Would these same editing capabilities apply to administrators?
Very nice! I agree with Mark (although I believe you note that only the Site Ow...
Very nice!
I agree with Mark (although I believe you note that only the Site Owner would have high-level control over the interface layout) in that there is some level of admin control that I think is needed when deploying course sites...this is simply driven by the fact that not all instructors are experienced UI designers ...we also like to create some consistancy for studnets as they move from one course site to another.
This said, I think the look and feel of the wire frames is great and I do like given some control to the instructor...and I think they would like it as well.
I'm wondering, on a practical level, how we might move users from what we have today to something like this design? The changes would be significant and might require some re-training, etc. I'm thinking of the Office 2003 to 2007 transition that we've just started. But maybe this is a discussion for another list...
@Mark Good point. Permissions (along with other configurations) need to be flus...
@Mark
Good point. Permissions (along with other configurations) need to be flushed out. I realize that some institutions want to setup a more controlled environment – where as others go the opposite direction.
I'm envisioning a fairly robust permissions system that spans most of the functionality in sites (as well as the dashboard), and a system admin will have s a configuration to select which permissions can or can't be changed by their end-users.
From an end-user perspective, you might imagine a permissions screen that has a bunch of check boxes – and depending on the system administrators configurations, some of those check boxes would be grayed out (or unavailable).
@Josh
The site creation process I'm envisioning will have a template aspect to it. Users will have the chance to re-use some existing site they've built before (along with all the content in the site), pick from a template or shell site with a pre-defined layout, import a site, as well as possibly share a site template they've created with others – sort of like an online repository for users (faculty and students) to find, preview, and maybe even rate site templates.
That last one is a bit pie-in-the-sky, but you get the idea. Site layouts and how they're offered can be pretty flexible. But as I pointed out to Mark, behind the scenes, there should be a wide array of permissions that the system admin. can configure to set levels of control or freedom.
So for example, a system admin. might decide to only let instructors use pre-defined templates for their sites – without granting the permissions to build a new site from scratch, or import sites, etc. They could even limit it to one template, so everyone uses the same template. Or, they could shut down the whole "Create a Site" feature and just push templates to their users.
I'm working on these ideas at the moment.. and hopefully I'll have enough to share next week to put a dent into some of these concerns.
@Mark "Would designasite apply to course site, too?" I'm doing my best to elim...
@Mark
"Would design-a-site apply to course site, too?"
I'm doing my best to eliminate the distinction from a course, project, general group site, etc... from a structural perspective. Any site should have widgets, a sidebar, etc. So from that perspective a site is a site.
But I do think it will be nice to classify widgets and tools so that user's can navigate a selection of options and pick the tools that a) they have the permission to pick and b) that make sense to the context they're looking to setup.
Comments (4)
Mar 24
Mark J. Norton says:
Some interesting ideas, Nathan. Obviously you've put a lot of thought into how...Some interesting ideas, Nathan.
Obviously you've put a lot of thought into how users can customize their experience, but what about those universities who want a very fixed layout for their students? Would these same editing capabilities apply to administrators?
Would design-a-site apply to course site, too?
I really like the idea of user defined pages.
Mar 24
Joshua Baron says:
Very nice! I agree with Mark (although I believe you note that only the Site Ow...Very nice!
I agree with Mark (although I believe you note that only the Site Owner would have high-level control over the interface layout) in that there is some level of admin control that I think is needed when deploying course sites...this is simply driven by the fact that not all instructors are experienced UI designers
...we also like to create some consistancy for studnets as they move from one course site to another.
This said, I think the look and feel of the wire frames is great and I do like given some control to the instructor...and I think they would like it as well.
I'm wondering, on a practical level, how we might move users from what we have today to something like this design? The changes would be significant and might require some re-training, etc. I'm thinking of the Office 2003 to 2007 transition that we've just started. But maybe this is a discussion for another list...
Josh
Mar 24
Nathan Pearson says:
@Mark Good point. Permissions (along with other configurations) need to be flus...@Mark
Good point. Permissions (along with other configurations) need to be flushed out. I realize that some institutions want to setup a more controlled environment – where as others go the opposite direction.
I'm envisioning a fairly robust permissions system that spans most of the functionality in sites (as well as the dashboard), and a system admin will have s a configuration to select which permissions can or can't be changed by their end-users.
From an end-user perspective, you might imagine a permissions screen that has a bunch of check boxes – and depending on the system administrators configurations, some of those check boxes would be grayed out (or unavailable).
@Josh
The site creation process I'm envisioning will have a template aspect to it. Users will have the chance to re-use some existing site they've built before (along with all the content in the site), pick from a template or shell site with a pre-defined layout, import a site, as well as possibly share a site template they've created with others – sort of like an online repository for users (faculty and students) to find, preview, and maybe even rate site templates.
That last one is a bit pie-in-the-sky, but you get the idea. Site layouts and how they're offered can be pretty flexible. But as I pointed out to Mark, behind the scenes, there should be a wide array of permissions that the system admin. can configure to set levels of control or freedom.
So for example, a system admin. might decide to only let instructors use pre-defined templates for their sites – without granting the permissions to build a new site from scratch, or import sites, etc. They could even limit it to one template, so everyone uses the same template. Or, they could shut down the whole "Create a Site" feature and just push templates to their users.
I'm working on these ideas at the moment.. and hopefully I'll have enough to share next week to put a dent into some of these concerns.
Glad you guys like things so far.
Mar 24
Nathan Pearson says:
@Mark "Would designasite apply to course site, too?" I'm doing my best to elim...@Mark
"Would design-a-site apply to course site, too?"
I'm doing my best to eliminate the distinction from a course, project, general group site, etc... from a structural perspective. Any site should have widgets, a sidebar, etc. So from that perspective a site is a site.
But I do think it will be nice to classify widgets and tools so that user's can navigate a selection of options and pick the tools that a) they have the permission to pick and b) that make sense to the context they're looking to setup.