I’ve just been looking at the OU’s Moodle VLE which have things like this in them (my highlighting):
That is, previous and next links, in quite small type. Increasing amounts of out materials are presented as HTML docs, with sections automatically segmented into separate HTML pages. So for example, here’s the navigation (i.e. page chunking) for a randomly selected unit of a randomly selected course.
The same materials are also made available in a variety of document formats:
One of the disadvantages of the HTML page link click model is that it requires mouse cursor movement and click actions. I’m not sure how quickly you can tab to the previous and next links, or whether keyboard shortcuts are available. (If they do exist: a) what are they; b) where would I learn about them as a student?)
On a tablet, the keyboard shortcuts aren’t really relevant – however, what might be useful would be to be able to swipe left or right for the previous/next actions. Maybe the VLE supports that already? Or maybe the browser ties the swipe to forward and back history buttons/operations and overriding them for previous and next link operations (so maybe use upswipe and downswipe, or diagonal swipe, instead?)
I’m guess what I’m really wondering is, is there a progressive enhancement library that allows swipe gestures to be tied to click actions, and if so, if implemented in the VLE (assuming the VLE doesn’t already provide a mobile theme that supports this sort of action), what would it actually feel like to use?
OUseful.Info, the blog... 