How to structure a database and display page for this app...

Ange52

Hello all!

I am designing an app to have students and teachers do a language project online. The project involves the students (and the teacher as well) tracking one English word through numerous languages. Take a look at the .png's I have posted online (links below) then read through the explanation for more details.

Student page
Secondary teacher's page

Each class will have a given language (the teacher selects which one, and when to change it), and all students in that class are supposed to enter in their English word in that language. Each week's language has background info on that language before the student enters their information. At the same time, the student is able to view/ edit/ delete old entries. Lastly, teachers need a secondary page where they can view all the entries by all of their students.

So I am having two issues here. The first, and most complicated one, is the following: how should I restructure these two pages for teachers who have more than one class?

Please help me figure that out first, and then I'll get into details about the database design that I'm struggling with. It's just that the issue of displaying the information correctly needs to be settled first.

Thank you for reading through all of this (I know it is a lot, and it is very situation specific). I appreciate your time, and I look forward to your responses.
-Ange52

raspberryh

Hey,
First off I wanted to tell you that this looks like a cool project!
Okay I am going to try to answer your question, if I understand the question totally...
I am guessing you already have it divided into classes right? But right now you only have 1 class per teacher?
So, in your 'classes' table (or whatever it is) have a column for teacherid, and then put the id that cooresponds with the teacher from the teachers table.
Then you can have more than one class with the same teacher id.
Then, when that teacher logs in, just do a "select * from classes where teacherid='" . $teacherid . "'";
Then display all the classes for that teacher, and then the teacher can click on a class which will go to your current "Secondary teachers page".
Did that help? I hope so. But let me know if I am not getting your question.
Heather

Ange52

Hey Heather,

First off, thanks for the quick reply!

The way I have it setup right now isn't all too complicated... there is a classes table to store information about the specific classes (including the teacher's ID number), then on the users table, each student has a class ID that they're associated with. So all of that doesn't seem too bad, really... Well, for right now, at least. I don't think I'm too worried yet with how the MySQL queries will work out until I can visualize how students and teachers will view the given pages. I think I'm okay with the secondary page (teachers will be able to sort by columns to view all work by one student, all work by one class, etc), but I'm not sure how it should work in an easy way that will allow teachers to control which language each class is on, and the teacher's list of words for that language, without it being too confusing. I'm worried that if I make the teacher select one class or the other at the beginning, that they will do something for one class then forget about the other (or accidentally lose information), and if I put it all together on one page, that it'd be too overwhelming.

What are your thoughts on organizing the front end, first? Then, with that settled, we'll come back to the MySQL query and how that should work out, later.

I hope that's okay with you. Thanks again for the help!
-Ange52

Ange52

bump

raspberryh

Sorry! I meant to write back and then forgot! I have to go out now, but I will write back tonight or tomorrow!

KingWylim

I believe you are falling into the fatal error that most of us Programer's do and that is trying to predict every possible user error that could come across.

One thing you have to remember is that if someone is going to use your system they should either recieve some form of training before useing or they should at least take the time to read about the program and the tutorials you create to help them navigate and use your software.

I believe that the problem you are speaking of can be handled just by creating a very short tutorial explaining what your software does and how it should be used and with a quick FAQ that lets people know not to forget about one of there classes.

Not to mention this sounds more of a College Proffessor Level application which would mean that most of them would understand the point that you put across during your tutorial and would be able to make sure that they did not forget about modifiying one of there classes if they have more then one.

Unfortunatly as a programmer we can not handle ever little issue and create a shortcut for every option of our programs this is due to a limited number of keys on a keyboard.

"Damn them not creating a keyboard with every possible deviation of character. 🙂"

If there is anythign programming end that you require assistance on I am more then willing to assist in this but as far as the organizational layout of the site to keep computer impaired users from falling into data corruption problems I'm unsure of how to assist in this problem.

raspberryh

Not sure I TOTALLY understand your question, but I will try to answer...
I don't think it would be too overwhelming to have each class and its language on one page. As long as each class only has 1 language, I think you'd be fine.
You could have it list out the classes, and then next to each class, a drop-down of languages that is already set to the language that the class is on. They can change the drop-down to a different language and press a "submit changes" button that you can have to the right of the drop-down and it would change the language for that class.
Another idea is to have tabs, or some kind of menu along the top. Have different options like "Edit classes" (this page would list classes), "Edit Languages" (this class would list languages, and then you could click on a language to edit the words for that language).
But I am still not sure how each class is layed out. Does a class have a language, which then has words, that are unique to that class? Or if say, two classes both use the language French, then the French words in that class are the same for both? (like, they both have the French word for dog, as opposed to one class having the French word for dog and the other class having the French word for cat)
I think it's good that you're thinking of the front-end, because I think usability is a really important thing. I do agree that it's good to have a manual and FAQs, but I also believe in designing the interface so it is easiest for the user.
I always try to assume the user is as dumb as possible so as to make the interface as easy to use as possible 🙂
I think that the easiest way to make things easy for the user is good organization. So, if you have things seperated into easy-to-see sections, then that should help a lot. And if you have subsections, then list those underneath the link of the section, or something, so the user isn't like "Where can I find ...?".
Hope that helped.
Heather

Ange52

Thank you both so much. I really appreciate both of the replies (especially coming from vets like the two of you, who I'm sure have had to learn this lesson yourselves). I think the best thing I can do right now is just start building up the program, and then test it on the teachers to see what the main problems are for them. It is a bit backwards to try to anticipate all of those problems, and it really did get me stuck even before I got going.

Thanks, both of you, again. I'm sure I'll be back soon with more questions once I'm actually building the code up!
-Ange52