A Poorly Designed Moodle Homepage

Problems in the design of the Moodle homepage below, include:

• A topical organization rather than a chronological one. It is best to make the homepage into a syllabus sequence of activities. The students would have a difficult time finding what they need to access and when in the coursepage below. Rather than putting all readings together and forums together and quizzes together, organize the page by weeks with only the activities and readings needed for that week. Look at the Well Designed Hompage for an example.
• A long list of readings in one topic area. The reading should be broken down chronologically by making each topic area a week. They would look less daunting then and be easily accessible. If it is important to keep all readings together, then put them in a directory (folder). You do this by clicking on Add a Resource and Display a Directory. The individual files should have been previously put in a folder in your Files area under Administration.
• Generic titles for links, e.g. Forum 1, Forum 2. It would be better to use distinctive titles such as the names of the topics covered in the readings, forums, and quizzes. It would also be good to include the due date, unless there is a consistent pattern set out in the syllabus.
• Too many blocks in no particular order. The administrative blocks on either side of the central content are not really necessary. Delete the blocks you don't use and put on the left all the remaining ones that are necessary. The People block and the Administration block are definitely necessary.
• Poorly defined and designed headings. It is best to have a topic heading, centralized and of larger font for each topical or weekly area. Be consistent with size, font, and placement.
• Instructor contact information. How do you want students to reach you? What is your email policy on response time? You should pick just one contact method--internal email, oakland email, other external email, or the News forum.
• Blank topic areas. Empty blocks look like a lack of planning, so go to Settings under Administration and change the number of Topics or Weeks to match how much content you have.
• No textual guidance. You can Add a Resource, Insert a Label to add directions to the activities. Or you may click on the editing pencil to include more text at the top of each topic area.