When we introduced an internal Mahara at Catalyst, one common complaint among the new users was that it was really frustrating to figure out how to change their user icon. The general process was something like this:
1. Click on the user icon or username at the top right of the page
2. This takes them to their user profile Page, which has a button that says "click here to edit this page"
3. So, they click the edit button. That lets them edit which blocks are on their profile Page, but not to actually edit their profile content directly
4. So, they click the "Settings" button in the upper right
5. This takes them to their account settings page, which has a lot of options, but no user profile
6. They repeat this in a frustrated circle.
Of course, the actual way to edit your user icon is to go to the Contents menu, and there's a tab underneath that. But I think, to avoid frustrating new users, it would make sense to put a link to this and/or an explanatory note from the user's profile Page and/or account settings page, to the Profile content and Profile Picture content pages.
We were discussing this on the Mahara forums, and Mike Kelly has come up with an improved UI for letting users update their profile info & pics: https:/
I've attached a screenshot.
Basically, he moves the "Settings" link from the title bar into the User Profile sideblock, and also adds links there for "Profile Info" (which goes to the Profile content area), and makes the user's own icon a link to the Profile Image content area.