DESIGN PATTERN: ACTIVITY GUIDE

The Activity Guide design pattern prompts users with ideas for potential learning opportunities by presenting their options in an organized and understandable way.

Use This Pattern When

  • Educators want to encourage student exploration of learning opportunities
  • Educators have access to various resources that are relevant to the system’s users

How to Use

Elements Considerations
Design an organized list or grid of items that users can browse through. How much space will be devoted to this list or grid? Will one format work better than the other?
Include a prominent title that summarizes the item in a way that is understandable to users. How concise does the title need to be? What kind of vocabulary can be used to make the title understandable to the users reading it?
Include more information that the user can access by clicking over hovering over the item. Are there any external links that need to be included? Will this be implemented as a tooltip, or a separate page entirely?
Consider including a visual element for each item. What kind of visuals will help the user understand the item better?
Consider including a search or sorting feature for long lists. Are there certain categories the items can be sorted by? If a search feature is implemented, will users have an idea of what to search for?

Why Use This Pattern

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Example

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Example description text

Related Research

Martin, C. K., Nacu, D. C., Pinkard, N. (2016). Revealing Opportunities for 21st Century Learning: An Approach to Interpreting User Trace Log Data. Journal of Learning Analytics Special issue on Learning Analytics for 21st Century Competencies.

Nacu, D.C.,  Martin, C.K, Sandherr, J.  and Pinkard, N. (2015). Encouraging online contributions in underrepresented populations. Research in Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) in Charlotte, NC, pp. 1-4.