14 September 2012, 5:24

Hi all,

I just wrote a blog post about some of the customisations I've made to our installation of Mahara over the summer. I thought I would share it here as it includes some thoughts on the GUI and usability, and I'm always up for having discussions on those topics.

http://mikekelly.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2012/09/14/updates-to-workflow/

Mike

15 September 2012, 0:19

Hello Mike,

Great post and I love the changes and additions you've made.

It would be great if some more of these features (not just the image resizing) made it into Mahara and wonder what others think about them.

Cheers

Kristina

15 September 2012, 11:41

I could use every one of these additions right now. All of them spot on for simplification and for better functionality.

I especially need the skill share facility as this type of colloboration between students and other system users is becoming as increasingly important way to extend the mentoring that is available across our college - it is just not possible any longer to work on the basis that the college staff, however savvy, are comprehensively capable across the whole raft of possible skill flexes needed to navigate a chaordic world and yet, once we factor in all users, we stand a much better chance of covering most bases ...

Mike ... I'll be in touch for the code and thanks for the inspiration.

17 September 2012, 11:15

These all seem very usefull and would go a long way in improving the user experience.

17 September 2012, 15:49

Mike this is all brillant, and - for me - in particular the skillshare item. I'm focused on implementing Mahara as a straighforward knowledge sharing/networking tool in corporates (mainly healthcare) and one of their main challenges is "who knows what" and "how do we connect people" in very diverse organisations.

So I think this has wide applicability.

I'd be intereseted in seeing, playing with and - if I can - contibuting to the code.

Best wishes,

Tim

18 September 2012, 3:17

Thanks for the comments everyone. I will prioritise making Skillshare available as there seems to be some interest in that. I'll need to remove some bits and pieces which are specific to my own institution. I'll look into it after the new term has started.

02 October 2012, 9:00

Some really interesting ideas here Mike - great work!

One big issue we are getting is YouTube videos not resizing automatically. Seems when we updated to 1.5, YouTube videos got bigger, so there is lots of overspill.

The biggest factor is when a student builds a Page on a 21" iMac and then a tutor goes to look at it on a 13" macbook. The results are very messy!

dan 

17 January 2013, 23:56

Hi all,

I have made the Skillshare code available here:

https://github.com/CLTAD/mahara-skillshare

Please see the ReadMe to check whether it will suitable for your installation.

Best wishes,

Mike

07 July 2013, 7:57

Mike,

Any update on the other bits (especially the Share page tab and the Add content block)? A big discussion was had around usability at Mahara UK in the past week and your code would help fix quite a few people's concerns, I think.

Thanks

07 July 2013, 15:56

Hi Wullie,

As part of the UI changes for Mahara 1.8 that Don talked about, we are making a change to the "Edit access" page similar to what Mike proposed in http://mikekelly.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2012/09/Screen-Shot-2012-09-13-at-17.41.48.png : The left side will have a background and thus more easily distinguishable from the area where you add people.

As far as the "Edit content" panel goes (Mike's version: http://mikekelly.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2012/09/Screen-Shot-2012-09-13-at-18.27.20.png ), the standard Mahara one will be monochrome and look something like http://imgur.com/lHLGoXg (no description displayed, e.g. on small devices) and http://imgur.com/Ixoq2qe (expanded with text next to block icons). The final versions are not yet in review, but will hopefully soon be.

Cheers

Kristina