This slidedeck was used to support Ryan Thomas, Chad Leaman, and Milad Hajihassen's presentation at the 2013 MoodleMoot. They work at the Neil Squire Society, which uses technology to empower people with physical disablities. They made numberous changes to Moodle to increase usability and accessibility across a variety of disability and literacy groups. What resulted was a very lean, simple, and accessible Moodle site.

1. Canada Moodlemoot 2013 Conference
Less is More: Stripping Moodle Down
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2. What’s this going to be about?
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3. If you haven’t read the description…
We’re going to discuss:
• Plugins
• Theme
• Core Hacks 
Our customizations solve problems with:
• Accessibility/Usability
• Navigation/Complexity
• Community
• Tracking
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4. First a little background
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5. Who are we?
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6. Who do we work for?
The Neil Squire Society has for over 25 years
empowered people with physical disabilities through
knowledge, technology, and passion.
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7. The Neil Squire Society
In 2013, we’re reaching a lot of people through e-
Learning.
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8. Now that you know who we help
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9. Usability: How easy is it for your users to do what
you want them to be doing?
Accessibility: Does your content take your user’s
abilities for granted?
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10. Usability
We want our Moodle students to:
• Log In
• Follow links to Blackboard Collaborate
• Visit their courses
• Do course activities
• Know what they have completed
• Message each other and their teachers
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11. Usability
We want our Moodle teachers to:
• Log In
• Follow links to Blackboard Collaborate
• Visit their courses
• Know what their students have completed
• Help their students with their accounts
• Message each other and their students
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12. Accessibility
We do not take user abilities for granted. The same
content is there for:
• The blind to hear
• The deaf to read
• The mouse-less to command
• The low-literacy to listen to
• The inexperienced to find
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13. That’s the background…
Let’s talk about our problems
(and solutions)
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14. Accessibility & usability
(problems)
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15. Our users are diverse*
Assistive technology (hardware and software)
Literacy (digital and literal)
Culture
*Teachers and Students
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16. Moodle can be a pain
There is a lot going on!
There’s a lot of stuff to click… I don’t have a mouse.
There’s a lot to read!
There’s too much scrolling.
It can be overwhelming!
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17. Don’t worry
There are lots of little problems here. If you have
them too, our code can help.
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18. Accessibility & usability
(solutions)
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19. The file picker… Ouch
After trying to kludge a block to replace it, I gave up
and hacked core. 
• Turned off most of the repository plugins
• Forced the <noscript> version unless a profile
field is checked.
• For the <noscript version>, added a bunch of
redirects that auto-select the upload repository
There is a lot less fuss with this one.
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20. Before
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21. After
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22. Comments > Forums
Screen reader users struggle with Moodle forums.
Our users have a 0% subscription rate.
We dumped forums:
• Forked “Page” module into “Comment Page”.
• “readable comment” block in “center of page”
• “unread comments” report
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23. Our comment page
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24. We use a lot of questionnaires
Forked the questionnaire module to comment
some things out and restructure things for
keyboard users.
Replaced a lot of quizzes with questionnaires.
Created a block to “mark questionnaire as read”.
Integrated “unread” (public) questionnaires into
our marking block.
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25. Nanogong
We love multi-modal learning (visual + aural).
Nanogong is wonderful, but keyboard users can’t
use it and its tabular layout is confusing.
We broke it out of tables and added html buttons.
We renamed it “Say It!”
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26. Say It!
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27. Youtube
Embedded Youtube videos are not focusable. We
wrap them.
We type: [[swf|yt|Wellness For Work|CHg-E0BWGBw|wide]]
We get:
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28. Text to speech block 2.0
Huge shout out to Patrick Thibaudeau and OOHOO.
They ported my 1.9 TTS block to 2.0.
They added a lexicon for correcting pronunciation.
I added an off/on option.
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29. TinyMCE
We forked TinyMCE to add in an autosave.
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30. Block: template
Fork of the HTML block.
Attempts to inject its content into the text editor.
Will respect HTML/noHTML formats.
Assignments and forums discussion topics.
Answer templates help students and teachers.
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31. Squire theme
Adds:
• WAI-ARIA landmarks
• A “center” region for blocks
• A site navigation (too custom for custom menu)
• Course navigation buttons
Subtracts:
• Most of the login page
• A lot of the footer
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32. Navigation (problems)
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33. Our users get lost… a lot
The navigation block is complicated.
The settings block is just “clutter”.
The home page lists EVERY course.
Courses have “scroll of death”.
The “next” and “previous” links are gone from modules.
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34. Navigation (solutions)
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35. We got rid of a lot
Navigation block
Settings block
Breadcrumb
Course listing on front page
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36. We added
A customized frontpage
Some frontpage blocks
A custom menu that’s more custom than Moodle’s
Profile editing back in the user profile page
A settings block that only admins can see
A custom course format
Navigation icons in modules
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37. Frontpage before
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38. Frontpage after
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39. Disclaimer
The “before” page still shows up for administrators.
The “after” page shows up for users.
I hacked core to force users to “MyMoodle” and
hacked it more to make every MyMoodle page the
same. 
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40. Main menu
Home (moodle/my)
My Profile
A report that shows “friends”
A link to noscript version of messages
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41. Profile management (core hack )
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42. Edit profile
User - Change password / edit links to profile page
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43. Block: course list lite
List of enrolled courses
Categorized
Alphabetized
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44. Block: collaborate
Links that are populated from hidden profile field.
Classroom and moderator links populated during
account setup.
More than one link is supported.
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45. Badge course format
Each section has two icons
One for all activities complete
One for some activities incomplete
Sections are grouped under “units”
Units are sortable
Sections are sortable
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46. Badge course format
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47. Badge format admin
Way easier to implement in 2.3+
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48. Badge course format: single section
When you click on a section:
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49. When you’re in an activity
Navigation buttons are added after “Main Content”.
• Back to the main course view
• Back to the section view
• Previous activity within section
• Next activity within section
(This is done in the theme)
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50. So…
Users can tell what they’ve completed.
They can’t spam the “next button” till they get lost.
They can use the main menu to go home.
They have an easy time finding their courses and virtual
classroom.
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51. Community (problems)
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52. Cohorts are not quite there
We like cohorts for:
• Community.
• Cohort-sync enrollment.
We wish:
• There was a cohort context (like “user” context).
• Cohorts could mass “friend”.
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53. Community (solutions)
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54. We made some cohort plugins
Now we have:
• Cohort friendship sync
• Friends report
• Cohort breakup
• Cohort relationships
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55. Admin tool: cohort friendship sync
Cron checks that each “from” cohort member is friends
with each “to” cohort member.
New cohort members become instant friends. 
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56. Report: friends
Looks like Outlook
Has email addresses and Moodle message links.
Encourages profile pictures.
Easier for screen reader users to navigate
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57. Admin tool: cohort breakup
Breaks friendships.
This lets teachers move on when they have a new
class of students.
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58. Admin tool: cohort relationships
Each member of cohort “from” is assigned a role in
the “user” context of each user in cohort “to”.
Our classroom IT is given a role that allows account
editing for each student.
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59. Tracking (problems)
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60. Navigation
Our staff hate the navigation and settings blocks.
We’ve had facilitators on screen readers.
We don’t grade anything.
Our staff do live demos… they can’t display client
information.
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61. Tracking (solutions)
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62. This was tricky
We made a “Class Facilitation” course.
The course contains:
• A comments activity
• A marking block
• Links to tracking reports
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63. Marking block
Our marking block:
• Doesn’t use AJAX
• Shows assignments, questionnaires, say its!, and
questionnaires.
– Course
• Unit (if course is badge format)
– Section
» Activity
• Is semantically set up for screen reader
navigation.
• Displays in the “center” block region.
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64. Report: unread comments
Breaks comments down by course and activity.
Provides “mark as read” link for each comment.
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65. Report: badges
We can see that
Bart has only
completed one
section.
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66. Report: participant credentials
Shows anyone you are “teaching”.
Displays:
• Name
• Username
• Whether their password is still set to default
• Last login
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67. Report: participant submissions
The inverse of the marking block.
Helps blind teachers reference user activities.
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68. Thank you for your time
Chad Leaman – chadl@neilsquire.ca
Ryan Thomas – ryant@neilsquire.ca
604 - 473 – 9363
www.neilsquire.ca
@neilsquiresoc
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69. Questions? Talk shop?
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