On course pages, consider changing "Preview" to a less ambiguous word

[kathrynwp]

Description

A user during an Online Workshop pointed out that the word "Preview" – visible on certain lessons – could be interpreted to mean that you would only get a small portion of the lesson without registering for the course. In fact, when a lesson is set to be previewable by its author, a learner is able to see the entire lesson without needing to register for the whole course.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

The "Preview" button is visible on any course page with at least one lesson that's been set as "previewable" – such as: Intermediate Theme Developer:
https://learn.wordpress.org/course/intermediate-theme-developer/

Screenshot

Solution

Is there another word or phrase we can use instead?

The workshop participant suggested "View lesson" but I wonder if that might not distinguish previewable lessons enough from lessons that aren't set to be previewable. Other ideas:

• Sample lesson
• Preview full lesson
• Sample lesson without login (but this is very long)

@jonathanbossenger @westnz Any other ideas come to mind?

[westnz]

I am unsure about this one as I like the term 'Preview.' Would 'Full preview' work? Otherwise, I think 'Preview full lesson' works best as it clearly indicates that the entire lesson is accessible without registration.

[jonathanbossenger]

I feel like this is a question of personal interpretation. A preview could mean you only see part of the lesson, but it could also mean an opportunity to view the lesson before it is generally available, i.e., by taking the course.

In a regular LMS, the preview feature is typically used to show only the first few lessons and lock the rest behind the take-course action. In our case, we don't want anything locked away, but we do want the take-course action to continue to exist, allowing folks to track and save their progress.

So in this case, the text could also just be changed to something like "View Lesson" to describe what the button allows the user to do.

[kathrynwp]

I like "Full preview" or I'd even be OK with leaving it as is, since the moment a user clicks on the preview button, they will see that the full lesson is there.

So in this case, the text could also just be changed to something like "View Lesson" to describe what the button allows the user to do.

Somehow "View lesson" seems even more confusing to me. For example, as a learner, I would wonder why some lessons have a "View lesson" button and some wouldn't.