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What's coming?

Owned by Abigail Myers
Last updated: Aug 10, 2023 by Sonja Grussendorf
5 min read

Improved Navigation!

One of the biggest improvements in Moodle 4 when it comes to User Experience (UX) have been made to navigation, and our new theme has made sure to emphasise the importance even further while keeping rearrangements to a minimum (blocks are now on the right, to make way for the dockable course index drawer in courses and expandable-collapsible “hamburger menu” on other pages)

Quick navigation menu(s) at the top of courses

These menus are role-specific, i.e. they differ for students and editors. Editors get links to frequently visited course areas/sections: Settings, Participants, Grades, and Reports. Students get a more limited menu based on what it is they can do: Participants, (their) Grades, Badges (if awarded), Unenrol me from course, Download Centre. Click below to expand to see screenshots for both views.

screenshot of what students see in their course menus at the top
Student Quick Nav Menu
View of top course menu for teachers and editors
Teacher (Editor) Quick Nav Menu

 

Hamburger menu

The hamburger menu (an icon of three lines stacked like a patty between two halves of a bun) for site navigation on the left hand side includes links to Dashboard (my moodle), Site Home, Calendar and My Courses. It can be toggled to expand and have the link title as well as the link icon and can be toggled to narrow to show only the icons and make the actual page content take up more space.

Screenshots show the menu expanded and collapsed:

The Hamburger Menu Icon is in the top left hand corner, to the left of the LSE logo, three stacked black lines. Use this to toggle between expanded and collapsed view.

 

To the right of the hamburger menu, within courses, there is another collapsible menu icon that can open and close the Course Index.

The new fabulous Course Index Drawer!

This is a real boon of an improvement, both for super quick navigation (for anyone, especially students) and super quick re-arranging of sections and items (for editors). It can be toggled out of the way, and expanded to make navigation through the course extra quick. We have chosen this new feature to be one of our spotlights.

Anyone can decide whether to display the Course Index. It can make finding things quicker and for editors allows much easier re-structuring of Moodle course elements.

New Look & Feel!

Personalisable Dashboard

After users log into Moodle, they are sent to ‘my moodle’, i.e. their personalisable dashboard. Below are two screenshots on what we decided were good features to have as default:

  • recently accessed items which takes you straight back to where you left off,

  • Timeline: for students a useful prompt to what is coming up (like assignment deadlines)

 

We have made a few decisions for the default look of that, but by clicking the EDIT MODE button at the top right hand corner, any user (students, staff) can make changes to what they consider to be more important, including moving our default blocks to different positions. Any changes made can be reverted easily back to our default setting.

Course summary and hero image

Before entering a course for the first time you will see the course description and course image (chosen by teacher or department). But whereas that used to be displayed at the top of each Moodle Course Page, the image now recedes into the background and the course content is placed on top of it, and the course summary has to be displayed as a block if wanted, although we recommend that you don’t: once students are enrolled in a course, they do not need a space-hogging reminder of what the course is about. This follows our de-clutter advice in the LSE Moodle Baseline.

 

If not enrolled in a course, the above message displays and pressing the continue button returns users to the Site Home.

No course summary at the top, and the image now provides the background to course pages.

The blocks drawer on the right hand side can be closed, the site menu on the left can be collapsed to give space over to the actual course page content.

Theme changes! (but still recognisable)

Our new theme, based on the very popular core Moodle default theme “boost” is catawesome and has been set to look as LSE as the last one, but working well with the improvements of Moodle 4. This we hope will smooth the transition from old to new Moodle for all of us.

Colours are aligned to LSE Style Guide colours to provide accessible contrast (eagle-eyed users may notice that the shade of red is now a few tones darker).

Edit button position and name;

In old Moodle, the “Turn Editing On” button was positioned on top of the Course Image and depending on that image was more or less visible. It has now moved to the top right corner and has been shorted to “Edit Mode”. It is always there and displayed more prominently. The on-off slider button look is more in line with current web looks.

Blocks NOW ON THE RIGHT

Because of the Course Index, Blocks have had to move to the right, and they are now within a drawer that can be closed if not wanted. In Editing Mode “ON”, at the very top Editors can click on Add a Block, and of course remove and configure blocks as before. The admin block should be there by default, but can easily be added just as any other if it has been removed.

Moodle briefing highlights (separate page)

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