[Tools Menu] Sidebar Navigation, Rewards/Achievements & Availability of Project/Topic Tools

As observed during the 14 December 2018 workshop, participants were tasked to create an Achievement, then a Reward. The normal workflow involves:

1. Go into the Topic Manager page of the Topic you wish to create an Achievement for.

2. Click on Topic Tools.

3. Click on Unlockable Achievements.

4. Create the Achievement in the Achievements Manager.

5. Return to the Project Manager.

6. Click on Project Tools.

7. Click on Rewards Store.

8. Create the Reward in the Rewards Manager.

Participants are usually stuck from step 5 onwards. This is because they are inclined to believe that they can find the Rewards Manager link "Rewards Store" within the same place as they would find the Achievements Manager link "Unlockable Achievements".

One proposed solution (Solution A) is to keep the Project Tools and Project Analytics links displayed even when the participants have ventured within levels further than Project. That means the Project Tools and Analytics links will still be available when venturing into Topic Managers or Challenge Managers.

While Solution A provides increased convenience to opening the Project Tools (even in Topic or Challenge level), it will not resolve the fact that participants assume Achievements and Rewards are grouped together. Participants may still assume they can find Achievements and Rewards grouped together in Project or Topic tools, and not that they will find them in separate places. Moreover, solution A may require a re-visit into the purpose and rationale of the sidebar's design. The sidebar was designed to provide tools only to the level you are currently at, and file-manager-like accessibility to parent, sibling and children links.

Solution B is to create a hybrid tools menu, as opposed to having distinctions of Project and Topic tools. In this hybrid tools menu, there won't be a difference to how Project-level functionalities and actions are accessed. However, Topic-level functionalities will work differently. Instead of having to click into the Topic Managers of your desired Topic before you can access its Topic-level functionalities, the former Topic Tools can be made accessible even at Project level. Clicking into the respective Topic Tools will force the participant to choose the Topic(s) they wish to edit, and they will modify the actions of their desired Topic accordingly.

A hybrid tools menu will consolidate Achievements and Rewards together in a single menu (and they will likely be grouped together). This means participants may no longer have to search in different Tools just to find Rewards or Achievements.

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[implemented]

Lastly, we have had requests for Project-level Achievements (Solution C), and they are likely to be rolled out in a year or so. While it may take a while for rollout, this removes the need for both Solution A and B. Solution C directly addresses the root problem, which is the fact that our participants' mental models associate Rewards and Achievements as similar but our platform does not group them together.