mLE Update taking shape
Well, after a few headaches and rethinks the updated mLE is beginning to take shape. If you want to keep an eye and its progress and indeed comment on how it is taking shape click here http://mlev2.newport.ac.uk. It is very much work in progress so please take that into account.
It will provide a more flexible method of content editing and an improved news service that will replace the intranet bulletin board as well as introduce RSS feeds and improved tutor usability.
We have used a technology called AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to improve usability and to provide a more dynamic and involving site. It scrolls properly and there are no frames or tables in site, well other than the mail page, but that is on my hit list.
The use of this technology poses some problems, namely the back button ceases to function (but we are working on mimicking it functionality). This in my opinion should not pose too much of a problem as we seek to make the web experience more like the desktop experience and should only help us strive to better design the user interface. The back button becomes a thing of the past and navigation through the pages is intuitive through well design pages. What do you think?
Some other side effects are search engines cannot see the embedded pages, but this is less relevant with the mLE and the dynamic pages loaded into the framework stand alone and can be spidered. Another thing is users cannot bookmark the pages, but this is again I feel not of any importance from an mLE standpoint.
One point that may need addressing is it doesn’t indicate anything is happening, which can be bothering over slow connections. We will remedy this with and “in progress” message if we need.
Have a look and let me know what you think.
G.