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Overview Personal Desktop Revision

1 Initial Problem

1.1 Analysing the Overview in 5.3 

1.1.1 Purpose of the 'Overview'

More than all other views, this one gives an overall overview and entry point to the most important information and workflows for the user. We identified the following general purpose of the view as it is implemented: 

Guidance

Aggregating Information that has consequences if missed.

The Overview provides guidance to users. We distinguish different kinds of guidance:  General Guidance by Educational Provider: Items that provide personalised guidance for the user by others (or the system). Specific Guidance by Educational Provider: Items that require action by the user personally on time. (Hand something in, participate in an event) User-customised trails: navgation to access content created by the user

The Overview provides information aggregation to users. We see two aspects of information aggregation: By others:  Especially on new things being triggered by others like appointments.    Relevance of Information:   Missing information hardly has consequences Missing information has negative consequences Missing it has servere negative consequences

1.1.2 Rival Components or Services

We identified some rivals of this view

• Guidance: The Main Menu is a main component that guides the user to different views.
• Information Aggregation: The future Notification Center and the existing news system are rivals when it comes to aggregate information.

2 Conceptual Summary

2.1 Goals of the Revision

• Defining the purpose of the view thus allowing to decide on its (future) elements.
• Reducing complexity and moving functionality to other parts of ILIAS where appropriate. 
• Reducing the column layout at least to a two column layout.
• Providing a consistent user experience.

2.2 Suggestion 

Middle Column
Important guidance stays on Personal Desktop 'Overview'. 

• 'Study Programme' 
• 'My Memberships'  
• 'Selected Items' 
• 'Recommended Content' (IF that feature request is to be accepted)

Remaining PD-Side Blocks
Only those services get blocks that can be assumed to have consequences of missed. Specifically 

• Calendar
• Mail
• News
• Tasks The introduction of this block is already scheduled for 6.0.

PD-Side Blocks that do NOT Remain on 'Overview' but are moved elsewhere
User-customized trails do NOT get a block on Personal Desktop 'Overview'.  The following Blocks should be moved to other parts of ILIAS. 

• Notes are user-customised navigational trails. Their update frequency varies with individual usage. Loosing your Notes would be really bad.  Suggestion: Move block Notes from PD Overview. Provide access to the feature through main menu, since even if frequency and relevance are high, all the notes are being provided by the users themselves. The entire Notes screen should be overhauled.
• Forum Postings Drafts are user-customised navigational trails. Their update frequency varies with individual usage. Users could use other means to navigate to Drafts of Posts if block has gone missing. Suggestion: This becomes a Task.
• Bookmarks and Tags are user-customised navigational trails. Their update frequency varies with individual usage. Suggestion: The Blocks for Bookmarks and Tags are abandonned from the Personal Desktop.  However Bookmarks and Tags become navigational slates.  

PD-Side Blocks to be abandonned entirely 
The Blocks for System Messages, RSS Feeds and Chat Viewer should be abandonned from the Personal Desktop.  

• Abandon System Messages all together
• Abandon RSS Feed Block on Personal Desktop
• Abandon Chat Viewer Block on Personal Desktop
• Abandon Portfolio Block on Personal Desktop

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Personal Desktop » Overview
• Administration  »  Personal Desktop

 

Basic Concept

3.2 User Interface Details

Use new 6.0-Layout with Top-Bar and Main-Bar 
Use KS Standard Panels for Blocks: see Request Streamlining Blocks as Panels 

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

Not in the moment.
We re-organize.

4 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

5 Contact

• Initial Request: Seiler, Yvonne [yvseiler], Amstutz, Timon [amstutz], Universität Bern, 
• Review Killing, Alexander [alex], Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt] & Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]
• Maintainer: {Please add your name before applying for an initial workshop or a Jour Fixe meeting.}
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• Technische Hochschule OWL

7 Discussion

Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila] 27 Apr 2018:  Please check Usability Improvements of the Personal Desktop

Amstutz, Timon [amstutz] 17 September 2018:  Thanks a lot for this good groundwork on how to make the PD more focused and usable along with the Page Layout Revision of the upcoming ILIAS version. The following points I like to highlight:

• I think your outlined option 1 for the layout is the way to go for ILIAS 5.4. We are running of time for a fancier look for the PD and I think the elements at hand (e.g. Deck of Cards or Listing panel with Lead Image) will work nicely here.
• I am not sure if we need Mails and News once we have the Notification center planed for ILIAS 6. For 5.4 I agree that we must keep them.
• I am a little unsure about "Selected Items". I completely agree with "It should be moved to Main Menu and be consolidated with bookmarks/favourites. Strong guidance (e.g. fill out survey) could be provided by task list or other means in a better way." However, what if we can not achieve this for 5.4. I would propose to leave as is as fallback. Do you see a clear way forward for the consilidation with bookmarks? What would the action "Add to Personal Desktop" on the Repository screens then perform, add as bookmark? 

Thanks a lot for this step forward in cleaning up this view.

Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt] 2018-09-18: The action "Add to Personal Desktop" will be "Add to Favorites". The Favourites offer a button "Add Bookmark". The Bookmarks will be blended into the Favorites list. 

Amstutz, Timon [amstutz] 2018-12-17: @Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila], thanks a lot for the additional table and the mockups. This gives a really nice overview and helps to grasp the idea quickly. @Seiler, Yvonne [yvseiler] and I looked over it, and like the general concept. However, we had and some point a hard time in grasping, which view follows which pattern listed in "Purpose, Goals and Rivals", maybe extend the table with an additional column that makes this clear (e.g.  Overview: General Guidance by organisation). 

Further comments:

• Extend Column Position, with label, e.g. 2. Personal Workspace.
• Mockup Favorites, News are there (which should IMO not belong there), My Portfolios is missing.
• Public comments use full horizontal space if available.
• Private notes duplicate in table, why? Maybe remove.

Again, thanks a lot for all your effort! This is a big step forward.

Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila] 2018-12-19: Thank you, Timon.

• Extend Column Position: check
• The pages Favorites, Public Comments, Private Notes, Tasks are part of the request. We need a definition where all the blocks that were previously on the PD should now belong. My portfolios will be added.
• Central blocks should take only one defined place. In my opinion the same problem as https://mantis.ilias.de/view.php?id=24272
• The central block and the side block of Private Notes offer the information in different ways.

Seiler, Yvonne [yvseiler], 20.12.2018: Again, thanks a lot again for your brain work and effort! I read the whole article and had some few questions left, I would like to ask or point out:

• In chapter two you describe that the "My Portfolio" block is to be abandoned. In the table, however, it is displayed as a side block of the "Favorites". Which path is suggested here for tracking? If necessary, this has to be adjusted in the accordion or in the table.
• In chapter two you describe that the "RSS Feed Block" should be abandoned. Am I right in assuming that this would also remove the entire feature "Add RSS Feed" (current action in the action menu of the PD)? I didn't quite understand what is meant by "But in this case this should be reduced to one RSS block".
• Chapter 2.1 under Rules specifies that "user-customized trails" do not receive a block. I was wondering if "Bookmarks" is not exactly such a block and breaks the rule? Maybe the rule has to be adapted a bit.
• It is described that a tile view is useful for the course list (My Membership). I support that! I can imagine that this is also a useful representation for the "favorites".

Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila] 2019-01-02: Thank you, Yvonne.

• Block "My Portfolio": Adjustment is done in accordion.
• Block "RSS Feed": @Alexandra: do I understand correctly that at most one RSS feed block can exist and this is specified by the administration? For everything else you would need a general revision of the component "RSS-Feed", right?
• Rules "user-customized trails": @Alexandra: This is due to the growth of the article, isn't it? It must now be clear that the blocks will be removed from the overview screen. They will then be distributed to favorites and others according to the table. How do you see this?
• Set Personal Desktop to Deck of Card Listing was schedulded on 2018-11-12.

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 01 FEB 2019 : I am a bit confused about the label of this screen. Is it still "Overview" - like shown on the Administration screen - or is it now "Dashboard" (as this screen is also been labeled in Default Configuration of Main Bar Items (ILIAS 6)? Thanks for clarification.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 04 FEB 2019 : We highly appreciate this suggestion and accept it for the next steps of implementation of the page layout revision. The discussion about the best label for that what is called "Overview" at the moment is kept open. We prefer a more precise and meaningful label but won't stop the discussion about the revision at all. Decisions about related features will be discussed and made in distinct feature requests.

8 Implementation