Jump Navigation in Learning Sequence Experience

TL;DR 

To enable faster movement through course content for learners and educators familiar with the course’s hierarchy, we have deployed jump navigation selectors to augment the existing course breadcrumb in the learning sequence experience (Learning MFE). With this deployment, a staff user can select a section or subsection, a menu will appear, and the users can jump to a particular unit within a course. 

What is it? 

Today, users employ the sequence navigation bar to find their way through course content in the learning sequence experience. This navigation bar though useful when traversing between units can be tedious for learners and educators when navigating between sections. To encourage faster movement through course content, we’ve enabled jump navigation in the learning sequence experience. The jump navigation selector augments existing course breadcrumbs in the Learning MFE to allow users to move directly to a specific section or subsection with a course. 

When staff users utilize the breadcrumb navigation tool on the course page to move between sections, they will now observe a select menu dropdown that will allow them to quickly jump to specific chapters within a course.

Open

When staff users utilize the breadcrumb navigation tool on the course page to move between sections, they will now observe a select menu dropdown that will allow them to quickly jump to specific chapters within a course.

Open

Once a staff user clicks the augmented breadcrumb, the selector will direct the user to the first uncompleted unit within the section or subsection of the course by default. Once in the desired chapter, users can navigate between units using the current sequence navigation bar as expected. 

With these changes, we aim to unlock greater flexibility within course navigation. Today, users have to make multiple selections in the sequence bar navigation to view specific content. With the new breadcrumb navigation experience, staff users can jump to specific areas within a course to access the desired content. 

Key talking points for customers

At this time, the jump navigation selector is not learner-facing. This feature will be available to staff users as a preview. Once we determine that the feature is ready for learners we will share another internal and external update. 

Results 

Through this update to the learning sequence experience, we aim to support educators’ edX internal users’ ability to quickly navigate through course content. We plan to gather feedback from internal users and course teams to better understand the value of this change before rolling it out to learners. 

Credits / A Group Effort!

Major thanks to the TNL-Cambridge Squad for driving this forward. 

Special thanks to all other contributors who took part in this initiative not listed above.