Move Quizzes.Next to Quizzes Tab

[ericwerth]

Currently to create a quiz or access an existing quiz in Quizzes.Next you must go to the "Assignments" tab.  I suggest changing this so that Quizzes.Next is in the "Quizzes" tab instead.

I believe it would be more intuitive to have all of the quizzes in the same tab.  If there were concern about differentiating regular quizzes/surveys from Quizzes.Next assessments, perhaps each could have a different symbol?

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For additional information please read through Canvas Release Notes (2020-02-15) .

[nsweeten]

The naming conventions used in Canvas are a bigger issue than the programming of features.

The course navigation button Assignments is really "everything you'll ever want to grade" but that is too long.  "Assessments" was suggested by Eric Werth and that's pretty accurate. 

Many Canvas tools are peripheral to Assignments, and the interface inconsistencies are counter-intuitive for new users. Quizzes and Discussions are placed as visually equal to Assignments tab in course navigation, when really, they hinge on Assignments as a sub-category, like Speedgrader and the gradebook. Speedgrader doesn't have a Course Navigation button at all--and inside the Grades area the course navigation menu disappears entirely!  That sort of thing.  Explaining all of that to a teacher who was born before 1980 takes a lot of patience and repetition. 

Canvas is by far my favorite LMS (better than others I've seen) but it doesn't think like a teacher and unfortunately, it allows you to do things that are a bad idea from the UX user experience perspective. 

It takes some time and error for new users to learn that you don't go to the Grades area to make a gradebook. (The gradebook is really an interactive Excel spreadsheet created as a by-product of Assignments.) If you want a column in the gradebook, you make an assignment. It also takes some time to realize that hand-graded assessments use Assignments and the Quizzes tool is really best for auto-graded anything: quizzes, exams, activities, assignments, etc.

Some sort of diagram or clear pictorial map of the interface would help a lot to promote correct usage of the tools. 

[ken_i_mayer]

Can someone explain the reasoning behind the LTI model for Quizzes.Next? To me, it it horrible and I am here searching the documents to find out when it will transition to a more seamless model. The main virtue of Canvas is its simple, friendly UX, but on the app. every Quizzes.Next quiz sends you to an "external tool" page where our students have to click a mysterious "use external tool" button. Why do we have to subject them to that EVERY SINGLE TIME? Why do we have to explain to them "Canvas will send you to a mysterious page. Because the quizzes are an 'external tool', you're going to have to click the button on the right...'  Every additional page and additional click means you LOSE viewers. I'm trying to make things easy!

[vanzandt]

Hopefully someone from Instructure can provide the "real" answer, but...

...from my recollection from presentations two years ago, the reasoning was that by breaking the tool out from the core product that they would be able to improve the performance for large course support since they would then be able to add computing resources to that tool individually as needed. 

Of course, they also made it the core interface of their new Gauge product that was released last year, so that surely plays into it as well.

[ericwerth]

Hi  @ken_i_mayer , just to add to what vanzandt indicated, I am also under the impression that looking forward, breaking the tool out is believed to provide development opportunities that do not exist in the legacy quiz engine.  I understand where you are coming from, and agree that there is a lot of functionality and user experience elements I would like to see implemented in Quizzes.Next.  I try to keep in mind that it was just released from beta a couple of weeks ago, know that the development team is working on creating parity in features between the new and legacy systems, and from released information understand that the legacy system will be available until parity is achieved.  I also know that folks from Instructure read the discussion posts about Quizzes.Next to get Community insight into usability ideas and how to make the interface better for faculty and students, so any ideas are welcomed.  There has been some great discussion in the boards and good thoughts on various aspects of Quizzes.Next (keeping the previous/next buttons available to students when taking a quiz, changing the location/appearance of how Q.N is launched, etc.), so look forward to where the tool goes in the future!

[ken_i_mayer]

Thanks Eric and Todd. I'm just surprised that this rollout is so clumsy. For years, everyone knew the quiz engine in Canvas needed a redo. For years they have been working on it. It's not ready for prime time yet and probably shouldn't have been booted out of beta. The Microsoft/Blackboard answer to poor UX is to point to some specious hardware/software issue ("... add computing resources to that tool individually..."), but that's really shorthand for "We didn't plan this with end users in mind" or "We don't have the skills and/or the mindset to design this for you, but maybe we'll get there..."
I'm sorry for channeling my inner Steve Jobs here. I was a Canvas admin at a small college for years, and I just started selecting an LMS at another small college. I've been promoting Canvas as a solution for our needs, and setting up a demo, first in old quizzes and now in Quizzes.Next, and I find it frustrating that I can't make Q.N. do what I want, and do it intuitively.

[18shumwaysam]

Would it be possible to add a new course-level navigation link to Quizzes.Next as an alternative to putting it only on the assignments page? It would be a little more visible there, and you could turn it on or off in the course navigation settings if you didn't want to display it in that course. Then it would be similar setup to the current quizzes. . . I can see it being confusing if you're using both Quizzing tools Canvas offers, but it would make sense if you're planning to only use Quizzes.Next in a course. Is this currently a possibility?

[Stef_retired]

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-18353-canvas-release-notes-2020-02-15 

[Stef_retired]

Comments from Instructure

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas. For more information, please read through the Canvas Release Notes (2020-02-15) 

ericwerth Thank You for submitting this idea, as well as  @GideonWilliams  Thank You @timothy_maw  Thank You  @l_lucas  Thank You  @kmeeusen  Thank You  @ken_i_mayer  Thank You vanzandt Thank You sweetera Thank You 18shumwaysam Thank You for your contributions. Your investment in this idea helped refine a feature that is now part of Canvas!