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@Laurie_Norris and I are so excited to share the newest feature coming to your Rich Content Editor (RCE)-- the Icon Maker! Since this amazing feature launched this weekend, we wanted to offer some Instructional Design best practices for using these icons to maximize the effectiveness of your courses and keep accessibility at the forefront of course design. To check out how to use the Icon Maker, visit @dlyons's blog post.
As David Lyons mentioned in his product launch blog post,
“Icon Maker in Canvas will allow teachers and course designers to create simple and reusable icons directly inside the Canvas RCE.”
Icons can be a visual symbol used to designate content or used as a navigational tool.
Icon Maker can create appealing visual icons to welcome and engage your audience.
Icons can serve as:
Icons are literally and figuratively images; the Canvas Product Team has just provided a way to create them natively in Canvas.
When building your icons in Icon Maker, remember:
Accessibility is your learners' ability to access your content. When we consider accessibility, we must consider how the information is presented and how it may be received. For more quick tips on accessibility, check out our last blog post!
When considering accessibility, you will want to make sure the images you create in Icon Maker model simplicity and have appropriate color contrast.
Don’ts of Icon Maker
You will also want to ensure that you don’t ignore accessibility rules. Choosing inappropriate colors or forgetting to label your images using alt text can negatively impact a learner’s experience in your course.
When creating your images in Icon Maker, consider when and where you are using them. Icons can serve many different purposes, whether it’s to add visual interest (decoration), take learners to a new destination (navigation), and/or provide visual context to a lesson (information). For this reason, we must be strategic in when and where we use icons.
Overall, it’s imperative that we practice simplicity when determining when and where to use icons. Learners should be able to quickly identify an icon’s purpose. When we include too many images on the same page, it will be more difficult for our learners to make these distinctions.
Be careful not to recreate navigation that is inherent to Canvas. Canvas has a robust and clear navigational system already established; when we use icons to override that navigational system, we can detract from what’s most important.
In fact, our team at Canvas has seen this on more than one occasion. In one instance, a student with a visual impairment using a screen reader had difficulty with his online course – specifically the overuse of navigational images. On each page, discussion, quiz, and assignment navigational icons were included to help direct learners back to “home”, “grades”, “discussions”, etc.
While we know this was designed with good intention, it distracted from the learner’s course experience. The audio on the screen reader reads the image description plus the destination of the image for every icon on every page. This was confusing to the student, causing him to think he had a glitch in his screen reader or Canvas course.
Though we may be well-intentioned, we must remember that our efforts may cause more harm than good.
When you build icons to consider your audience, you put their needs above your own. In other words, I’m worried about what my learner may think more than I am concerned about what I think.
Icons will look different depending on the age you are designing for. Consider the appropriate size, colors, and amount of icons to meet the needs of your learners.
When you don’t consider your audience, you may find that learners have trouble navigating through your course or feel overwhelmed by the content at hand.
Images and icons serve a purpose and portray a message - whether it’s for visual engagement, for navigational purposes, or for providing information. It’s important to consider the message you want to impart using your icon. Explore our Ready-Made Template Suite to see examples of how to leverage icons to send the right message.
When considering your icon’s message, you want to make sure that your icons are visually appealing, useful, organized, and consistent.
Be sure you keep your purpose in mind when creating your icons in Icon Maker.
We are so excited about this new feature and know it will make your lives much easier! When using Icon Maker, remember to consider (1) accessibility, (2) when and where to use the icons, (3) your audience, and (4) the message you are sending. We hope that these Instructional Design tips will help you make the most of Canvas’s new Icon Maker. We can’t wait to see what you all create! This is just the beginning of what you can do with Icons in Canvas. To elevate your course design even further, contact your CSM to purchase our Instructional Design services.
Please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!
Our Instructional Design team offers templates, consultation, badging services, course evaluations, workshops, and more. If you would like to learn more about our services, please contact your CSM or @deonne_johnson, Manager, Learning Services, via djohnson@instructure.com
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Nicole is a Manager in Learning Services at Instructure. Prior to working at Instructure, Nicole was an elementary and middle school teacher in Orange County Public Schools for 7 years. She also worked in the county's Professional Development Certification Program to train incoming teachers who are coming from outside of the educational field. In July 2021, she graduated with her Master's Degree in Instructional Design and Technology. Aside from her professional career, Nicole is also a singer. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Vocal Performance and loves musical theatre. She also loves her husband, three children, free food, iced coffee, the beach, and the color yellow. In her spare time, Nicole loves DIY projects and helps with her husband's carpentry business.
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