Improve course list card styling to better visually indicate that the whole card is clickable.

[joshuasosa]

Motivation

Course list styling could be improved to support better visual indication that a course card is clickable.

Originally noted in PR #5411

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Course list cards don't currently provide much indication that they're clickable, leaving users to guess.

I would normally not expect the row to be clickable. I would see the underlined red links for the syllabus and the link in the description and plan to click those but would otherwise have no idea the whole row is clickable for more information until I start poking around.

Proposed Resolution

Describe the solution you'd like

Comparison: Calendar

A little better with the red titles but could still be improved. Underlined titles ultimately would be most helpful, or 'read more' pseudo buttons/links.

Comparison: News grid

The titles could better represent clickable links but the fake 'read more' links at least help prompt users about something to click for more.

Comparison: Clickable card with no image

The title could similarly be better styled to indicate that it's clickable but the 'card link' fake link does well to prompt users that something's clickable there.

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Make course list cards not clickable and instead only make distinct links and perhaps the course title clickable as regular links.
• Use accordions instead, where accordion labels use course number and course name and expand open with the rest of the information.

[kevdevlu]

@joshuasosa sorry i think i might've misunderstood your comment: #5411 (comment)

I thought maybe you were pushing for improvements across the board on all of these cards to be standardized / better signal click-ability not just courses. That's why i was saying maybe we do a separate issue, but were you mainly concerned with courses?

Btw, on a separate note not super related to this issue, regarding your concerns with the course API:

There's a few reasons content is manually entered:

1. UAccess is slow to approve changes. Management wanted information published faster than UAccess could approve and propagate.
2. Additional fields like syllabi for current, future and past courses, the course website to use (not everyone uses D2L, or use it in conjunction with other faculty sites), and course statuses.
3. Ability to display a projected teaching schedule, as in planned out semesters for future years.

i know you said LPL wouldn't use Quickstart course module in the future anyway, but i actually found some other people who also have similar needs as all that LPL is doing for courses, or at least point 1 and 2 that you've listed and I've found that for point 1. the approved early/preliminary course data actually exists on an oracle database somewhere, so i'll be trying to get integrations to make an API for us to get that data.

I'm saying all this to say that the courses module will be updated / enhanced so i can definitely make the card more clickable looking on that round

[joshuasosa]

@joshuasosa sorry i think i might've misunderstood your comment: #5411 (comment)

I thought maybe you were pushing for improvements across the board on all of these cards to be standardized / better signal click-ability not just courses. That's why i was saying maybe we do a separate issue, but were you mainly concerned with courses?

Btw, on a separate note not super related to this issue, regarding your concerns with the course API:

There's a few reasons content is manually entered:

1. UAccess is slow to approve changes. Management wanted information published faster than UAccess could approve and propagate.
2. Additional fields like syllabi for current, future and past courses, the course website to use (not everyone uses D2L, or use it in conjunction with other faculty sites), and course statuses.
3. Ability to display a projected teaching schedule, as in planned out semesters for future years.

i know you said LPL wouldn't use Quickstart course module in the future anyway, but i actually found some other people who also have similar needs as all that LPL is doing for courses, or at least point 1 and 2 that you've listed and I've found that for point 1. the approved early/preliminary course data actually exists on an oracle database somewhere, so i'll be trying to get integrations to make an API for us to get that data.

I'm saying all this to say that the courses module will be updated / enhanced so i can definitely make the card more clickable looking on that round

Yes, I was mostly concerned with the course card not having any clickable indication. In my list of comparisons, I briefly note what I think is their clickable indicators, albeit with reservations.

I created this new issue for the low hanging fruit of doing something simple for course cards. I believe that would have a higher likelihood of getting done faster than getting everyone to agree on across-the-board standardization of clickable indication.

If you're interested in attempting to align some clickable indication beyond this issue, feel free to create a new issue!

[joshuasosa]

FYI I added a new alternative: use accordions instead. We use accordions for course listings in my dept.