The user interface is simply impossible to use. My instinct is that Steve is both autocratic and oblivious to the basic principles of UX design - to the point that he is unaware of existence of something called UX design.
Here’s what I’d like to be able to do.
I’d like to be able to create courses as containers for lessons. That’s it. That’s all I want to do.
Instead I am confronted with a sprawling gamified mess which contains not the slightest danger of easy navigation.
It’s a very bad sign that the button for creating a new document is labelled ‘import’. There is a big difference between importing and creating. This, first step, in using the site advertises the conceptual confusion that lies behind its design and navigation architecture.
Other examples: When opening a lesson the pull-down button that says ‘courses’ only shows ‘lessons’…It literally makes no sense. There used to be a button called ‘my courses’. It’s disappeared… Closing your account is hidden behind ‘change plan’.
The ‘playlist’ section contains no button for creating a new playlist - what is a playlist anyway? more gamification.
The ‘my lessons’ section has no way to create a new lesson, or delete an existing lesson…
The ‘import’ section appears to allow you to import into a course… one just loses the will to live.
Here’s some advice.
People need to be presented with a hierarchy of things they will plausibly want to do.
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They want to create lessons - it needs a button called create lesson.
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They want to import a text - to create a lesson - this can derive as an option under one
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They want containers for these lessons - call them courses OK. They need to be able to create these.
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They need to be able to edit and move around this stuff much like you’d edit and move around files and folders on a PC or in the cloud.
That’s it. That’s the top level hierarchy.
Emojis, games, ‘challenges’… ALL of the rest of it is much less important.
Using this site is like getting into a car and finding that the huge thing in front of you is the light for the trunk. The steering wheel is a small knob under the passenger seat and the accelerator can only be operated by a passenger sitting in the rear via an intercom that features Google translate - and the sat nav shows you how to get to places but only in different countries.
Now I have posted comments about the UX before and they have disappeared. If this comment disappears then I will be exporting my vocab (I just tried it and 20 minutes later no email has arrived) and ‘changing my plan’.