New Emoji Icon Location - Obscures Text in Assignment Comments

[aolsonpacheco]

Hi Canvas Folks,

We recently enabled the emojis in the Assignment Comments tool in our instance and are getting faculty complaints about not being able to see the text they are writing because it is being blocked by the new menu icon: 

• If you look at the screenshot above, the opaque smiley face menu icon COVERS THE TEXT being written in the assignment comments box. 

Would it be possible to move the menu icon to below the textbox, so it does not block content? This seems like an obvious solution to a pretty significant design flaw. 

Thanks for the help!

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi again, @aolsonpacheco ...

As I had mentioned in my other reply to you in a different topic, this would need to be created as a new Feature Idea.  Or, you may be able to find an existing Feature Idea to participate in.

• How do idea conversations work in the Instructure Community?
• What is the feature development process for Instructure products?
• How do I create a new idea conversation in the Instructure Community?

Hope this helps...thanks.

[aolsonpacheco · Accepted solution]

Thanks for helping me navigate the process of reporting these things to Instructure.

I think this is a bug rather than a feature request. I will reach out to our CSM to see how best to report this unless you know of a place in the community I can report bugs. 

Update: I emailed our CSM and submitted a support ticket with Canvas. 🤞🏽

[Chris_Hofer]

@aolsonpacheco ...

There isn't a place here in the Community that you can reach out directly to your CSM team.  I think you'd need to do that via e-mail or phone.  I did find this document which details more about this: Feature Option Overview: Emoji in Submission Comme... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com).

[mwolfenstein]

I see that you posted this update in November last year. It's now late April 2023 and this bug has not been fixed. This is of course frustrating, but sadly it's also not surprising given the long list of partially developed features we've seen going live over the years. The assignment comment library is another excellent example of a feature that people wanted but that on release was only half built and has languished since then receiving no updates at all.

Instructure, we really need you to address feedback on these features in a timely manner, especially when they very clearly interfere with functionality. I also want to push back on the idea that this is a bug rather than a really bad design choice. It would be a bug if the emoji selector was supposed to be showing up in another part of the UI. I don't see any evidence that this is the case. The slightly transparency on the selector which goes away on mouse over definitely looks like the designers, for reasons that are beyond my ability to guess, decided to place this button here instead of in the row of buttons below the box where it very clearly belongs so that it won't cover up text as you are composing comments. This definitely needs to be fixed, the fix is not a complex one, but for some reason it has remained unfixed for most of a year.

[aolsonpacheco]

Thanks for calling a spade a spade, Moses. I agree that it was designed as intended, and this was basically the feedback I received from our CSM. 

[m_b_visona]

Please fix this, Canvas!  As a senior scholar, I was taught to be an academic snob, and I only send emojis to my nearest and dearest - my students are enrolled in college to learn how to use their words, and to use images effectively. Why did Canvas assume that a smiley face would be a nice DEFAULT option??

[Chris_Hofer]

@m_b_visona ...

I provided you with some details in your separate question which you posted here:

How do I remove the suggested emojis from my comme... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

I would argue that since this is a Feature Option that can be turned on/off by your school's Canvas administrator, this isn't something that requires a fix by Instructure (the folks that make Canvas).  As you may know, Canvas is used in the K-12 school setting, higher education, and sometimes corporate trainings.  As I described in my other reply, this is a setting that Canvas administrators can choose to turn on/off based on their needs.  As you can see from this related Feature Idea, there was some interest from Community members in wanting something like this available:

Create an emoji button in the comment section of S... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Hope this helps a bit.