I think Olli and I discussed this before, quite a long time ago. I am inclined to try to implement it now, because it may be as easy as any other way of fixing MDL-18214, and this is a good idea anyway.

The idea is that we change what you have to do to create a new question. Currently, you have to choose the question type you want from the 'Add question' drop-down, with only the question name to guide you.

Instead, I propose that we have an 'Add question ...' button. This will take you to a form that lists all the question types, with a brief description. You select one, then click next. If JavaScript is enabled, this will pop-up in a JavaScript dialogue (like http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/container/dialog-quickstart.html) to avoid having an extra page load.

Advantages:

• Makes the choice of question type much easier for novice users.

Disadvantages:

• One extra mouse click for experienced users (and an extra page load if JS is off.)
• The list of question types with a one-sentence description does not fit on one page* (except on big screens) so we will need a scroll-bar. That makes the first problem worse.

I am about to attach a screen-shot. Suggestions for avoiding or minimising the disadvantages welcome.

• the screenshot is 731px high.