Hi, as you know we’re looking into improving the authoring space in LON-CAPA and have already identified issues with both editors. I’ve demonstrated solutions to some of them during the conference this year. However, our goal is not to work on a replacement for the colourful editor but instead focus on your item 4, namely streamlining the workflow in both editors. That’s the best we can do given the available resources.
Regarding your questions: > 1) We notice that the colorful editor is not used very often. Apart from the > psychedelic colors, why is that? What’s the problem with it? > 2) Is there anything good about the colorful editor? > 4) Think about the whole workflow of authoring problems: What is important? > What do you need? How can the whole process of authoring be streamlined? We’ve found, as others in this thread already pointed out, that the colourful editor *is* used by almost all author types (ranging from novice to expert authors). Users typically don’t stick to just one editor, but might use both while working on authoring a problem. Question 4 is interesting and highly relevant, but requires careful study of how users interact with the system, what their goals and tasks are, how they approach solutions etc. and, perhaps more importantly, what discourages users from authoring problems. There’s a body of research in HCI and UX that covers those topics, also some standards and guidelines exist in this area (e.g. ISO 9241). Furthermore, I believe it is necessary to be more specific about the audience you’re trying to address. Experienced users (like those on this list) have usually found ways to deal with their authoring problems and - as some comments already pointed out - don’t really require a new editor but instead would benefit from improvements to the existing ones. I wish there was a one size fits all solution to this, but don’t believe so. A cleaned up and well documented language for LON-CAPA resources, something Damien is working on, accompanied by some tools could be a cornerstone for community-developed solutions to this problem. > 3) We always hear “WYSIWYG,” but when you really think about it, that’s quite > impossible: LON-CAPA problems have deep structure, and there is a lot that > “you do not see,” but that’s important: parameters, scripts, … how would > “WYSIWYG" look in this scenario? > 5) Do you know of any editor on the web that is approximately doing what we > need? Some good design examples for us to look at? I don’t think a pure WYSIWYG solution would be sufficient, but I can imagine something along the lines of modern IDEs, e.g. Apple’s Xcode, in which the User Interface is created in a WYSIWYG-like editor and the code is created in a source code editor (with many assisting features). However, such an environment is getting complex easily and wouldn’t solve the issues for novice users. For this group I could envision something like WYSIWYG editable templates, which would work similar to the current template mechanism when you create a new problem, but would allow for editing in a WYSIWYG mode. This second approach should be straightforward and easy to implement. BTW have you considered replacing or extending the colourful editor with Damien’s editor Daxe or some of its ideas? Stefan -- Stefan Dröschler Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften Hochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel ZeLL - Zentrum für erfolgreiches Lehren und Lernen Salzdahlumer Str. 46/48 Büro: Am Exer 10d 38302 Wolfenbüttel Fon: ++49 5331 939 17250 http://www.ostfalia.de/zell On 09 Oct 2014, at 19:09, Gerd Kortemeyer <ko...@lite.msu.edu> wrote: > Hi, > > We are trying to figure out how the next generation content/problem editor > should work, and we really need input. > > 1) We notice that the colorful editor is not used very often. Apart from the > psychedelic colors, why is that? What’s the problem with it? > > 2) Is there anything good about the colorful editor? > > 3) We always hear “WYSIWYG,” but when you really think about it, that’s quite > impossible: LON-CAPA problems have deep structure, and there is a lot that > “you do not see,” but that’s important: parameters, scripts, … how would > “WYSIWYG" look in this scenario? > > 4) Think about the whole workflow of authoring problems: What is important? > What do you need? How can the whole process of authoring be streamlined? > > 5) Do you know of any editor on the web that is approximately doing what we > need? Some good design examples for us to look at? > > Anyway, please discuss on the list now. We do not have the developer capacity > to allow us the luxury of going down the wrong track. > > - Gerd. > _______________________________________________ > LON-CAPA-users mailing list > LON-CAPA-users@mail.lon-capa.org > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
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