June 7th, 2009
I’ve just spent over 5 hours trying to get the menu tree working, and the code still won’t find the JavaScript or image files, but it does load the CSS. Many others have had difficulties with the installation, and I read the entire discussion about this, but still can’t find a workaround for myself.
This menu tree is absolutely vital to the site. I want it more than anything! Here is an example of a website that uses this menu tree. You can expand and collapse the folders as needed. This is perfect for WikiStudent, which will have over 100 Unisa modules in the menu, which don’t all need to be visible at once.
I’ll have to wait till next weekend and try again then. Maybe there will be more help on the MediaWiki talk page by then. Holding thumbs!
Posted in Navigation | No Comments »
June 6th, 2009
I finally found a MediaWiki calendar extension that does the job! Here is what the calendar looks like.
And it’s easily editable because you don’t have to mess with table syntax. All you do is type the date. e.g. 2009-10-13:::ALP101Q Exam
The purpose of this?
Well, if someone fills in the exam date for a module, I’ll know when to email everyone doing that module. Not really a ‘good luck for the exam’ email, but rather a request to come back to the wiki straight after the exam and put down all the questions you remember were asked.
Some improvements to be made:
- I think the current year needs to be displayed at the top, next to the month. (Will have to modify the extension’s code for this)
- It needs a proper design, maybe even the exam date highlighted. (Will need to look into the CSS)
Tags: Extensions
Posted in Unisa Past Papers | No Comments »
June 6th, 2009
Today I met my new neighbour who, it turns out, I had bumped into in 2004 at the post office where she was sending off a Unisa assignment!
We actually recognised each other, even though we’d only met once 5 years ago. I remember how it happened: She was posting a Unisa assignment, I approached her and told her she could submit them electronically (which she didn’t know), and I showed her how to log on to SOL (Students On Line it was called in those days, not myUnisa!) and of course I also told her about my Unisa website (called COSINE, not WikiStudent, in those days).
So, the upshot is, she’s agreed to do some usability testing for me :-) She’s already graduated, but her input will still be valuable because I need testers who know how Unisa works and what students want.
Posted in Testing | No Comments »
June 5th, 2009
Since the initial testing revealed (from two sources) that students want to interact with other students doing a module, I dug around and found this very suitable ContributionCredits extension. This is what it produces at the bottom of every wiki page:
The above snippet was taken from the ENN102E page. You see a heading “Contributors to this page” with usernames of everyone who ever edited that page (except for admin).
So that’s a neat solution for indicating who is taking which modules. You can also click on a person’s username to find out more about them (what they are currently studying, what work they’re doing on the wiki, view their photo…).
In the past, I had a section where you could insert your name if you were doing a particular module, but that was a manual process, so not many people went to the effort. This extension is ideal because your username is added automatically the moment you save your changes to a page.
Tags: Extensions
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 4th, 2009
I love this tester - he’s very talkative and “thinks out loud” when looking at the pages I show him, which is exactly why I’m doing this “live” user testing. You learn some things that you don’t learn by emailing someone and asking for feedback electronically.
Here’s the page he looked at (COS340A)
And here’s what I learnt:
Positive
- He understood the picture of the teapot graphic (i.e. that it was related to the subject COS340A), even though he is studying languages, not computer graphics.
- He liked the idea of taking a quiz about a subject.
- He noticed all the [edit] buttons along the right-hand side of the page and wasn’t afraid to click on them.
Negative
- He didn’t notice the tabs at the top of the page, so I had to point them out.
- He thought the “discussion” tab was where you could e.g. complain about the lecturers. (It’s actually where you discuss the content and layout of the page, not a discussion forum!)
- I asked him to try sell a textbook and he had no clue how to insert his name and book into a table. The wiki markup for tables with all those pipe symbols (||) is not intuitive!
Surprises
- He said he would want to print the page, and clicked on the “printable version” link.
- He thought that the assignment due dates calendar wasn’t necessary because myUnisa has this info.
- He said “where are the other students?”. He wanted to see names on the page, of other people taking the course.
So, I’m off to make some changes to the layout of Unisa module pages…
To quote from page 134 of Don’t make me think:
Testing one user is 100 percent better than testing none. Testing always works, and even the worst test with the wrong user will show you important things you can do to improve your site.
Very true!
Posted in Testing, Unisa Modules | No Comments »