Coached e-learning platform improvements (2/3)

These last two weeks, we've continued programming on the improvement of the coached e-learning marketplace.
We've just deployed them.

Speed
We have especially improved the (client-side) speed of 2 pages:

Course (describe a course). before = 23s. Now = 5s. e.g.: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#course/javaoofundamentalscourse

CoursePage (content in a course). before = 27s. Now = 4s. e.g.: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#coursePage/7a211fb0-cfe1-4926-9147-1cd960451f27

Above numbers measured on my recent laptop with good internet connection and IE.

We have reduced the amound of divs in the template that places the header/content/footer, for every page.

Finally, we have spent much time extracting/publishing a mini-framework from our code: http://vaadin.com/directory#addon/120
This move is a first step to have no more previous-page-reload-before-next-page-displays problems (that impact speed).

Admin Registations
There are more and more registrations. The auto-cleanup procedure deployed last time had a bug which is fixed now, it should make some pages lighter.
We have also devlopped a page for admins to have a better overview of these registrations.

Video
Every coach should have a video.
John is showing the example there:
http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#user/id=555

Advices on doing it for you (point 1.4.9.2)
http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#coursePage/7a211fb0-cfe1-4926-9147-1cd960451f27

Student Usability
As announced in the forum:

student: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/forum/posts/list/343.page

coach: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/forum/posts/list/0/344.page#1742

we have worked on improving how intuitive and clear the application is for a student and a coach. Thank you for those who helped us with feedback.

The topic page layout has been improved. Plaese note the clickable path diagram, with the current topic highlighted.
e.g.: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#topic/JavaOOFundamentals

It should be more clear now that an exam can be taken with no course registration.

The explanation dialog box when a student clicks 'access course content' has been improved.

The layout of the courseReg page has been completely changed, with a step by step explanation.

Finally, the coachStatus page has been improved to make their progress more clear for coaches.

Contribution Points
We have recreated the contribution points page with Vaadin. It is accessible from your user page, by clicking the amount of countribution points.
We've added in the computation table, the points you earned thanks to todos on courses.
An admin can also give you arbitrary points (as before), but now linked to a course. This makes you apprear in the top contributors of the course.

Now, the course leader that closes a comment can give a few points (between 1 and 5) associated to the comment.

If you think your done something that deserve contribution points, please remind us to give them to you.

Course Offerings for level 2 coaches
We have redesigned when a coach level 2 can create a couse offering (and access the course material);
Now we have the notion of level 1, level 2 and level 3 courses. Most courses are level 2. Advanced courses are level 3. Java & OO Fundamentals is level 1.
Level 2 coaches can access the level 2 courses (most courses) for which they have succeeded the exam(s).
It's much less restrictive than before.

User Description
The user description is editable from the new Vaadin user page. It is especially important for coaches who need to describe themselves to potential students.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 09/05/2010 12:57:15

John Rizzo wrote:
Speed
We have especially improved the (client-side) speed of 2 pages:

Course (describe a course). before = 23s. Now = 5s. e.g.: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#course/javaoofundamentalscourse

CoursePage (content in a course). before = 27s. Now = 4s. e.g.: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#coursePage/7a211fb0-cfe1-4926-9147-1cd960451f27

Above numbers measured on my recent laptop with good internet connection and IE.

We have reduced the amound of divs in the template that places the header/content/footer, for every page.

It is definitely faster now. But in my opinion texts are "too much on the left". There is no indentation. Is it bug of feature?

See: http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/ui/#CoursePage/cdf3dbc2-6dc4-4809-8a07-bc6041e53b40
Course content is no longer on the right, but is bellow the chapter. It looks strange to me, I assume it is bug.

It's just your browser cache holding the old CSS.
Press Ctrl + F5