SchoolTool 2.0 represents a complete rethinking of SchoolTool’s web interface from the organization of the application as a whole to the layout of each form and button.
The staring point for the redesign was the Ubuntu Web Design Guidelines and the free Ubuntu font, both created by Canonical Design. We developed a new color scheme and logo with Schwadesign. This gave us a clear, attractive and consistent foundation for all our web assets across our homepage, documentation, and the SchoolTool application itself.
We standardized the design of forms used throughout the application, including an attractive grid design used in both the gradebook and the attendance journal. The judicious use of Javascript in dynamic dialogs, sliders and menus has streamlined the user experience at key points. Explanatory text has been added to many rarely-used pages.
Administrative views were a particular focus. They have been divided into technical/server and school-oriented tasks and re-organized for clarity and efficiency.
Thanks to a clean separation of model and view in SchoolTool, we were able to make these changes with minimal changes to the underlying database and application logic.
The school timetable model used for scheduling class sections was completely rewritten for this release to be more flexible and in tune with the realities of schools around the world. Classes can now start and stop at different points throughout a term and can be edited during the term to reflect ongoing changes.
The Intervention user interface was simplified, with areas of redundancy with core SchoolTool removed. Status messages were removed as a special type of message.
Because of the extent of the user interface changes in SchoolTool 2.0, we recommend this not be applied to an active deployment during the school year. While these changes should not require significant re-training, some testing and advance warning will be necessary before making this change.
Below are changes since the release of SchoolTool 2.0.0 (2011-11-23).
SchoolTool for Precise Beta 2.
First bugfix release.