library side-nav items don't look like clickable folder nav items

[indirectlylit]

Observed behavior

The side-nav folders in Learn Library aren't as easily identifiable or clickable as other menu and nav items:

Learn	Main side-nav	User menu

Expected behavior

• include folder icon
• full-width clickable area
• hover state consistent with other menus and nav bars

User-facing consequences

• not clear that the items listed are folders
• harder to click items
• inconsistent styling

Context

0.15.0-beta1

[indirectlylit]

cc @jtamiace if you have thoughts

[jtamiace]

Making the entire row clickable + hover states would be a good update for consistency. I don't know if adding the folder icon to every single item would be that meaningful to distinguish different items since only folders show up in that list. Would rather find a way to show it once, which can possibly be in the 'Folders' subtab. Was this your first impression when looking at that list? Hoped that the left-hand list and the titles in the main UI on the right would map well to each other.

[indirectlylit]

When I first looked at the list, I definitely did not realize that they were folders. This might be partly because the demo channel has folder names which look like filter options.

However we often (usually?) use labeled icons even when items in a list are homogeneous because it aids learnability and visual scanning of the page holistically. Examples:

• Classes and Users tables in Facility
• All tables in Coach
• Facilities table in Device
• Recent example: https://github.com/learningequality/kolibri/issues/7262

I was actually separately going to suggest adding icons in a few other Learn places that felt "naked" to my eyes, for example:

class list	channel list

Without icons, users are "forced" to read headers. With icons, less reading is necessary.

[salonipugalia]

I would love to work on this issue, please assign it to me if open.

[MisRob]

Hello @salonipugalia, thank you for your interest. This issue isn't ready to be resolved as it needs some decisions. I'd recommend finding another issue. Searching by "beginner friendly" or "help wanted" tags may be helpful.

[salonipugalia]

ok @MisRob , thankyou.