The importance of UX testing and the Moodle User Association | A conversation with Gemma Lesterhuis

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Moodle Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Hello, I'm Mary Koch, education manager here at Moodle hq and you are listening to the Moodle podcast. Today I'm speaking with Gemma committee member of the Moodle Users Association and longtime ler, and we are going to be talking about the Moodle community, Moodle moods translations, the M U A UX testing and anything else that comes up. So Gemma, before we get into specifics, could you tell us a bit about yourself, where you're from, and how you first got into using Moodle?

Speaker 3: 0:45

Well, I should just introduce, my name is Gemma Lek. I'm living in the south parts of the Netherlands, about 20 kilometers from Anto. And my first experience with Moodle was about 11 years ago. At that time, I was contracted by an event and course organization in ITO and responsible for implementing Moodle. And in September, 2014, I actually started my own company to work as an independent IT business liaison.

Speaker 2: 1:12

In terms of that, you've actually helped to organize Moodle Motz in the past. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Speaker 3: 1:17

I did. I did a together with Arnold Free, which, uh, I founded the foundation detecting Amna be Lukes. And during the pandemic we organized two online mood modes for the Dutch speaking community and one live event in Tilburg. And I have to say it was really great to do. We worked with in community driven program commission so that we always had feedback on the program but also on other small things you do do during organizing the Moodle mode. We definitely wanted to have this community driven Moodle mode. I got a lot of satisfaction from organizing the Moodle modes, but due to personal reasons I had to stop. And after discussing this with rna, we both decided that would best to disband the foundation and the future mood modes would be run by his owners organization, which is also a mortal premium partner in the Netherlands. And last February they had, uh, their first Moodle modes without a community commission. I did not attend it, but what I have heard, they did a really great job on it. So I'm really happy that he continued his mission of organizing the Moodle modes.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yeah, Moodle mo. So one great example of the community coming together and if we talk a bit about your own community contributions. I know for instance, that you've been involved in translating Moodle Academy courses into Dutch. Could you tell us about how that came about?

Speaker 3: 2:36

It's a little of a long story, but to keep it short,

Speaker 2: 2:40

We've got time.

Speaker 3: 2:42

Well, to keep it a little bit short, is, uh, when we dis spend the foundation, we have money left over in the bank. So Arnold and I were discussing what to do with it. On one thing, we both agreed that it should be in the benefit of the Moodle community. I'm very enthusiastic about the Moodle Academy because I really like the fact that you have these online courses. I've got a lot of questions over the years if there are online courses, and I especially, uh, like the fact when Jessica told me that you could translate those courses to your own language, when Arnold and I were discussing things, we had some issues to bump in, like how to deal with the money and where to keep it and stuff like that. So I made this appointment with Jessica Graham of the MU Academy. We found a great way to work together on that. And Moodle Academy is right now managing the money so that my company could do the translations. So at least work on the project and we're actually trying to separate these things a little bit because we want to ensure that there is a good progress going to the translation of the courses. And since July we have translated 25 Mole Academy courses. Wow,

Speaker 2: 3:48

That's so

Speaker 3: 3:49

Cool. Yes, but our biggest struggle right now is that the translations have been done lively. We want to do quality checks because it is really great that we found students to help us out, but of course they're not modelers. So you have these things like are typically something you do in Moodle. So we, we really would like to have a little bit more involvement of the community. So this is my call out, so if you are a Dutch modeller and you want to help us with the quality checks, please contact me because I can really use the help.

Speaker 2: 4:21

That's great. And actually not only Dutch Moodles, but I'd just like to call out Moodles whose first language is anything other than English. If you would like to also translate Moodle Academy courses into your language, we do have a course called Translate Moodle Academy on Academy and which, uh, you go through and then you can translate the courses into other languages as well. So that's a really helpful explanation there. Gemma, on the subject of community, continuing with that, what do you think it is about Moodle that makes community members so passionate?

Speaker 3: 4:55

I believe that we all have our own reasons. They're probably a variate a lot. If I look at myself from my IT mind, I'm very passionated by Moodle, l m s because I believe in its flexibility and scalability. Uh, that is is very strong point for any organization to use it and who want to start with it. It doesn't make Moodle easier to implement, I really realize that. But it does give organization a tool that will always be able to grow with them as they continuously develop their e-learnings or any kind of learning. When it comes to the community, I'm passionate about it because we are working together and we're very enthusiastic about doing this together and to improve mood and ensure that teaching and learning is accessible in all parts of the world. So I think we have a very much a common ground here as well.

Speaker 2: 5:46

Yeah, and I would just like to add into there the fact that on moodle.org we actually have many communities in different languages. I know you are very active in the Moodle, in English and also in the Moodle in Dutch community there. It's a great place for people to go if they have a, a question or a problem with their Moodle site either as a teacher, that's where my, uh, help is really, or as an administrator, you don't have to go and ask your question in English if you're not comfortable with that. There are other languages too. So moodle.org, again, another place to go to be part of the community and to help troubleshoot problems. Now a another aspect of your in involvement is the M U a, that's the Moodle users association, your committee member. What prompted you to join the M U A and and how did you become a committee member? What led you to want to become a member of the committee?

Speaker 3: 6:42

Well, for having my own company and being an independent contractor, I always had this, still walking this tin line when it comes to the model trademark. When the M MUA was introduced by Martin, I actually saw this as an opportunity to be able to personally contribute back to the mood l m s project. Not only financially, but also with my thoughts and my ideas on how to improve mood because, well, this is my point of view, but if I look back to Moodle two point A or 3.8, it felt really like that mood LMS wasn't living in the 21st century

Speaker 2: 7:17

<laugh> many, yeah, I, many people would agree. But yeah,

Speaker 3: 7:21

And later on I first I did it just as a member and later on there opened the spot in Moodle community. I'm not really sure what happened, but it was during the year and I volunteered to help out for just that year. I kind of stuck to it. I got very enthusi from being part of the M MUA committee as well, that my, that I could use my organization skills and background as an it BU business list liaison. I found out it was very handy. It also, uh, really started to realize that this committee really helped me to grow as a person. I got more out of the shadows because before I was really operating always on the background of things. For me it felt stepping out of the shadows, become more verbal, present in the community. And though I have this struggle, I always have the struggle with Moodle<laugh> when it comes to that on a personal level and balancing things like what do you do for the community? What are, which community are you gonna focus on? Is it the Dutch one or the international one? I took a break for one year and now I'm back. And I would really love the fact that, uh, I got this opportunity to help with the project cycles because they're very close to home for me.

Speaker 2: 8:29

Yeah, I've seen you quite active in the project cycles at the moment. We're always thinking ahead or the Moodle users Association is always thinking and planning ahead for 4.3 now and and so on. And that, that's really useful. So maybe you can tell us a bit more about the m mua, what they do, what their mission is and why people might want to join.

Speaker 3: 8:52

For me personally, the, the M MUA is a place where the model community comes together on an international level. We have all these small organizations, uh, in, in different countries, but the MUA is more like committing to an international part. And the mission of the MUA is to support the growth of MU L M s by providing a strong and united voice to users. As a member, you not only have this place where you can share your thoughts and ideas with this international community and Moodle hq, I must say, in a very safe environment. But we also organize Moodle townhouses every month. One of the Easter for the Easter and one for the Western Western Hemisphere where members and Moodle HQ present, but also twice a year, so much your own improvements project, which I really like. I think that's the very strong part of the M U A I would say if you are interested in helping to improve mood l m s or simply looking for a way to support the mood community and the project, then just please join us. That's

Speaker 2: 9:50

Great, thank you. And you mentioned helping to improve mood l m s, which leads me nicely into my next question actually. We, we've talked about the community, your background, we've talked about translating, we've talked about the partner, Moodle Moots and Moodle Users Association. But another area which interests you is UX testing and of course that is helping to improve Moodle l m s. Can you tell me why in your view is UX so important?

Speaker 3: 10:18

Well, from my experience when an organization is looking for a new L m s mostly think that the price is what makes a decision and of your, of course this, this does play a part, it is not being the night, but from all the demos I gave over the years, I also found out that the first experience is leading in that position. So I can build these really great looking Moodle LMSs, but when the user an enters it and it doesn't understand what they should do or find it too hard to use the product, they will be much more inclined to look for a different solution. In, in short, a good UX makes the difference between a successful and a failure of any project, not only mood lms. Um, besides this, I also believe that a good UX leads to the end of a better user experience and therefore more involvement and loyalty towards the software program that's being used.

Speaker 2: 11:12

So, absolutely. So I think you've probably uh, answered my next question, which was why should people become involved? So just remind us again why we we need people to volunteer and help us with, with our UX testing.

Speaker 3: 11:25

We as model users, we should be involved in this research. Uh, part, uh, we are experience users. We already experiment every struggle that a new U user has to deal with at this point. And a lot of them clearly pinpoint those issues at hand and have great thoughts and ideas of what should be changed to have a better productivity so that users spent less time to learn how to use Moodle and spent more time in actually using Moodle for their teaching and learning learning goals. So also as a community, we can give input on how mood l m s is actually being used, which is very important factor since every little change we make could have an impact on mood l m s as a whole. The more information we can give to the Moodle UX team, the better the Moodle developers can oversee the full picture and the challenges and the technical limitations they have to deal with. I also believe that as Moodle community, we have this duty to share our thoughts to ensure that Moodle LMS becomes a better project on its own and therefore can continue on their mission, our share mission as I see it, to empower teachers all over the world.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's just talk in general now from your point of view, you've, you've had a lot of experience with Moodle and you've seen many different versions of Moodle and new features and improvements. So which features would you personally, in an ideal world, which features would you personally like to see in the Moodle software in future years?

Speaker 3: 12:57

That's a very difficult question because you have, sorry, so many nice things to, to add to it. But if I look at it right now, I would like to see a better way of how to use certificates and in, in Moodle, maybe more like batches, uh, dealing with recom of a course. It's not like the similar way as uh, re certificate a course, but more like, okay, if you have done a course and you wanna redo it again, how can we provide that and improving those, the homepage as when it comes to the course cards? And actually that one will be my first point. We have done just a wonderful job with the new my course page and I really would love to see those cards also on the homepage so you can build or create this course catalog for students to use.

Speaker 2: 13:43

Yeah, that sounds really good. Well, who knows, maybe some of these will get put in in the, in future years, particularly if we get input from, from the community, uh, regarding that. So we are approaching the end now of the podcast, but obviously I'm going to ask you, is there one question or are there any questions which I haven't asked, which you wish I had asked? And, and if so, what were they and what would your answer be? Gemma?

Speaker 3: 14:09

I have two questions, Marie. Okay. I thought of another one. But the first thing is you can contribute but to model as a community on very different ways. You already mentioned, uh, we, we talked about forums as you mentioned. I'm very active on both of them. The m u a, uh, UX research, but also that's, this is a personal experience by example. I run free accessible webinars in Dutch, which are also posted on a YouTube channel. And I kind a really great response about it because video helps people sometimes more than reading it from a paper. But people could also help, like with posting short video guidelines on questions, uh, we get from clients or Right. Blog on mood topics or help with mood QA tests. Yes. And the other one that I was thinking about, and this is a question I got mostly asked in the past nine years now I'm independent, is when will I become a mood partner?

Speaker 2: 15:05

Right

Speaker 3: 15:06

<laugh>. And on that one, my current answer is the same and I really hope that we can work towards this, but it's really up to Moodle HQ when, and I really hope soon.

Speaker 2: 15:16

Okay. Well that's great. Thank you for that. Thank you for answering all of my questions re really well in really great detail and thank you to the listeners. Thank you, all of you for listening to our episode. Thanks Gemma, for being a part of it. And if you'd like to find out more about the Moodle Users Association, the m mua, please visit moodle association.org. If you are interested in helping translating our Moodle Academy courses, not only in Dutch but in other languages, do sign up to our translate Moodle Academy course on moodle.academy. And if you want to get involved with Moodle testing, if you go to moodle.org, which is where our communities are, then go to moodle.org/ux and these links will also be available in our show notes. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3: 16:05

Thank you, Mary.