Remove colour overlay from course cards that have an image

[stuart_ryan]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

Howdy all,

Firstly I have to say the new course cards image feature is awesome and a great leap forward. I have been using it a bit now and have a small request for a future revision.

When a course is given an image for the course card on a user's dashboard, I would really like to see the colour overlay removed (so that the image does not looked washed out with the user selected colour).

Ideally, I would love to see this configurable on an account level rather than an individual course level, but that is just from an administrator's perspective.

Just to visualise this more, the current behaviour with a couple of different colours:

And the ideal/requested behaviour:

Additional thoughts:

I do realise the colour is important for a few different areas in relation to the course, so perhaps the bottom bar could be extended as a border around the entire card (just as one example).

Many thanks  team,

Keep up the awesome work!

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-05-13) 

[QC99_tsilvius]

On this doc I shared our K12's love for Course Images​, too, but these images would stand out so much more if removing the color overlay were an option to teachers. Voted-up this feature request as soon as stefaniesanders​ pointed it out to me today.

[rgibson1]

You're braver than us. We won't even turn it on....

[laurakgibbs]

Oh, I think you should turn it on! The cards are fun; here's something a student remarked in the Canvas survey I did mid-semester (this is our first year with Canvas):

Honestly, I like most how the class link on the Dashboard has an image compared to my other classes that are set colors...

That made me laugh; it's always fun to see what students notice and, thanks to that remark on the survey, I know the student goes in through the Dashboard (I never use the Dashboard myself)... and that's exactly where the cards make a different.

Here's the survey I did for anyone who's interested; the students offered lots of suggestions for what they would like their instructors to do when using Canvas:

OU Digital Teaching: Canvas Survey: Week 8, Fall 2016

[SHEBENE]

Each user is in control of their color coding as it stands (unless more admin control of user dashboard happens, which I am against). Whatever color choice is made by the user for the "card" is the color for the their calendar.

[stuart_ryan]

*waves Hi to  @biray ​*

Any chance there is an update on this :smileygrin: we passed the official 30 day mark and I know I am itching to get some news on this. Many thanks!

[Renee_Carney]

Hi Stuart.

This one is past our usual 30 day mark, however there is still no update.  Sorry.

We'll post one as soon as we've decided how it fits.

[stuart_ryan]

Thank you for the update  @Renee_Carney ​ really looking forward to getting some traction on this ASAP.

[rgibson1]

I had to chuckle: "Gathering additional info about this feature request"

220 votes down is a lot of information to gather.... 😉

[laurakgibbs]

I just wrote up a post about the course image feature for my "Teaching with Canvas​" blog, hoping to promote more awareness of this feature and also to let people know how useful the Canvas Community is (I linked to this discussion in the post). Here's the blog post:

Advice: Use a Course Image​

We had an opt-in soft rollout for Canvas on my campus this semester, and next semester it is going to be Canvas opt-out (we still have D2L running), and then next year it will be all-Canvas. I started this blog about a month ago to share my experiences using Canvas, and the course image feature is one that I know my students appreciated (they told me so). I hope other faculty will use the feature too... and I also hope that we will have the option to remove the (very annoying) color overlay soon. 🙂

Here's the screenshot I included in the post showing my Dashboard: all my courses have images, while the purple block is for a training course that my school offered in which I am enrolled as a student:

[mmoore1]

I like the clear picture mode without the overlay of the color.  However, to keep the color system working (to identify courses easier) you could create small logo or text within that frame in the various colors that you are currently using.  Then the color idea would still work.