Feedback on new reply sidebar

[gpillsbury]

In the Sept 15 release, a new reply sidebar was added that replaced the unfolding of replies below a topic.  Thumbs down from me.  The flyout takes you out of the flow of the thread and suddenly you have to keep your mind in two places - the flyout and the original discussion area.  Yesterday, when clicking the "# replies" link, and the hidden replies simply unfolded at the location of your click, I was happy.  That made sense in terms of countering the scroll of death.  Today, when that same click causes the page layout to change so dramatically, I'm not.  Sub-replies are now displayed as a separate "page" within the flyout and you have to find and click the "<-- Back" link.  Sure, I figured it out, but it's not better than what we had yesterday.  It reminds me of Slack, and I don't like their approach either.

[Katrina-Hess]

Hi @gpillsbury, we are considering all the feedback we've received around the thread tray vs. scrolling/expanded replies... will update everyone here as we get further along in our discovery. Thank you for your feedback! 

[kgerig]

@Katrina-Hess 

Thank you for being active in the community and keeping us aware. 

I manage the Canvas courses for our program and I enabled the Beta feature for the Fall Quarter. We only had a couple of students report at the end of the class survey that they did not like the new DB.

I like some of the changes, such as the look is much cleaner. I've seen other people state they do not like the pop-out when clicking on replies, but I actually think that is a good thing because one can read through the replies of a post without losing their place in the original thread.

I still like the ability to collapse and expand in the original thread though. 

We just spent 12 weeks getting our students used to the new DB and I'm debating whether to continue to enable this in future courses. I don't want to whiplash them back to the old way if Canvas is planning on making this permanent. 

Any word if this will be made permanent? In other words, obviously the Canvas team is working on improving the DB. Any word as to how close they are to making these changes? 

[jb67]

I agree with @gpillsbury and would vote for expansion vs. sidebar. Another big advantage of going with the expansion approach is that you could (hopefully) have a Collapse/Expand All Replies option like there is in the classic version.

[jb67]

In case it wasn't clear from my previous message, not even having the option to see all replies at once is a major downside of the Redesign, in my view.

[rmcochran]

Will there be any way to grade a post from within the Discussion itself? While grading in the Speedgrader is excellent, it would also be wonderful to have the ability to grade each post as you go through a Discussion. 

[gpillsbury]

I would doubt that level of granularity will be part of this.  My sense is this redesign is more about interface than adding new functionality.  In my experience with other LMSs, grading discussions is either done one individual post at a time (Moodle) or grading all the posts of one student at a time (Blackboard and Canvas). I don't see Canvas changing to the Moodle approach any time soon...

[lshulman]

Ability to grade individual posts would be an EXCELLENT add! That is one thing I miss from when we switched from Blackboard. I used Blackboard's five star rating system as a "grading" tool. Now I just track grades for individual posts on paper but still use a 1-5 scale to represent D- through A+ quality post.

With Canvas, all we can do it a "thumbs up" if we like the post but that is not nearly as helpful for us or to serve as feedback to students. I tend to only use "thumbs up" for truly outstanding posts. So this does not communicate much of value to students. 

[b_w_reid]

We agree with the points raised initially about this. It makes it more difficult and feels less intuitive for students and staff to view replies and feedback. It does seem rather clunky with a pop out as opposed to a collapsible threaded discussion. It feels like it's trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist.

[Katrina-Hess · Accepted solution]

We are definitely going to explore how to improve grading for Discussions. For this quarter we are focused on:

• the reply navigation (adding Expand/Collapse Threads back into the topic page instead of having to use the Thread Tray, as well as, being able to reply inline vs. in the Thread Tray)
• @mention (new feature, available now)
• being able to quote a reply (new feature, available now)
• moderation tools (new feature, in active development... first up will be the ability for students to report inappropriate or offensive replies to the teacher)
• anonymity (new feature, in discovery)  

[d_j_corbin]

Thanks @Katrina-Hess for this information! When you write "anonymity (new feature, in discovery)" - how long does the discovery phase usually take? I can't find anything about this in this webpage: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Community/What-is-the-feature-development-process-for-Instructure...

What sorts of activities is the product team conducting in the anonymity discovery phase?

[lshulman]

<the reply navigation (adding Expand/Collapse Threads back into the topic page instead of having to use the Thread Tray, as well as, being able to reply inline vs. in the Thread Tray)>

Yay!

Glad to hear this return to what was.

[hburgiel]

I love these new features! I've already sent out an update to our faculty.

[Katrina-Hess]

Discovery varies, in this specific case we're at the tail end of it. I'll create a post specifically around what we're thinking for our 1st release in the next week or so!

Generally, our discovery phase at Instructure involves:

• understanding the problem
• gathering quantitative/qualitative feedback from customers
• designing solutions
• determining feasibility and scope with our engs (we are here)

Once that's done, we build the work into our sprints. 

[mwolfenstein]

This is extremely enlightening. I know I've said this in less kind ways in other places, but I now see the very obvious step in the UX design process that is missing in how this happens with Canvas. You appear to be completely skipping the prototype step and jumping straight to developing beta features. As far as I can tell, you also seem to be skipping the step where you interview users pre-prototype testing with mock-ups to evaluate how they might feel about possible UX changes. I can't say this understanding makes me feel better about the dev process, but at least it's now clear to me how my own UX experience often leaves me bewildered with how Canvas develops and releases features in ways that are frustrating for so many users. I apologize for the instances where I've been less kind in delivering feedback. On the other side of the coin, please consider that if you don't take essential steps in UX design to gather user perspectives and ensure that your design is going to proceed based on deep user empathy, you will wind up with very frustrated users who will have difficulty not expressing that anger and frustration. To put it another way, there is a power dynamic at play here. You as the developers are in the position of power. We as users have little to no power in this relationship as by and large we do not have the ability to leave your product even if we are encountering serious issues, and even if our institutions choose to move to a different LMS it takes time, often years.

[Katrina-Hess]

@mwolfenstein, the interview/prototype/pre-prototype testing happens in this step:

• gathering quantitative/qualitative feedback from customers

This is when we validate ideas, concepts, designs, as well as, learn more about use cases.

[JoNeenOhlaker]

Is there a way to disable student ability to delete or edit their responses in this new beta version?

[mwolfenstein]

@Katrina-Hess I hate to say this, but if that's the case the decision to go this direction is even more disappointing given that you had this user group set up prior to rolling that feature out but as far as I can tell, no input was asked for from a group that is theoretically actively helping to determine product development in a way that is likely to lead to the most successful product roll out. I really want to be able to be primarily a booster for Canvas. My job revolves around training and supporting my faculty primarily in their use of Canvas. When design decisions like this take place whether they're rolled out in beta or live, and my faculty come to me angry and frustrated, all I can do is tell them that I have no idea why the Canvas team has made UX choices that undermine the work they do with their students. I sincerely hope to see more transparency and better support for those design choices as the Canvas team moves forward not just with the Discussions Redesign but with the product in general. It's been a rough few years.

[Katrina-Hess]

@mwolfenstein I understand your concern around our process. We validated proposed designs with institutions before this user group. Our product team takes UX validation and changes seriously.

[Katrina-Hess]

@mwolfenstein as a reminder, the purpose of the Feature Preview is so you can test new features as we build it, and the purpose of the user group is to get feedback on new features. Please continue to use legacy discussions until you feel the redesign is more ready. We are still in beta and your feedback will help shape the direction of this product. We will not deprecate legacy discussions without surveying the user group first.

[Renee_Carney]

Greetings @mwolfenstein & friends in this thread. 

We genuinely appreciate your participation in this product development group for discussions and as you can see Katrina is extremely engaged and continuously considering every piece of feedback shared. We know the virtual environment has it's challenges for this type of open and transparent discussion and we also recognize that topics around changing student and instructor workflow can be difficult, but all this considered we think these conversations are worth the challenges.

That being said, I do want to point out that we do have guidelines and expectations when it comes to these conversations in the community and we expect all users to adhere to them. I would also add "assume positive intent" to the context of these guidelines. I can with 100% confidence say that our teams never set out in researching or developing with the intent of making things more difficult, absolutely the opposite.

Please continue to ask questions, and raise concerns, but do so in a way that assumes positive intent and mirrors the way you may speak with a friend or family member over a cup of coffee or a good beer.  Each of our jobs have their difficulties and we want to be partners in building solutions.

[hburgiel]

I've also just confirmed that if you click outside of the sidebar while typing your reply, the sidebar closes and the text you've entered is lost.  If one student reported this unfortunate experience to us, I'm sure there are many others out there who don't know who to complain to.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

It has happened to me too, @hburgiel . Very annoying to accidentally click out of the sidebar and lose your post.  When they added the "save" feature in classic discussions, it was such a lifesaver, the redesign needs it too. 

I would much prefer that there were no sidebar, just an easier method to expand/collapse a thread, also Expand all and Collapse all threads buttons.  Expanding threads is not intuitive in classic discussions, since the expand arrow is not visible unless you hover over the area, it definitely needed improvement.

[sstramos]

When I initially saw the new look in Discussions, I assumed I made a mistake in my settings. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I really dislike the sidebar and the choppiness of the Discussion. The flow is interrupted and students’ feedback is overwhelmingly negative. I find that even with a detailed rubric, response are down. Students usually go over and above the minimum responses, but are now doing the minimum routinely because I feel they are as frustrated as I am with responding. 
 
Any chance if a return or an option for something closed to the previous format?

[lshulman]

@sstramos 

<Any chance if a return or an option for something closed to the previous format?>

Some schools allow instructors to DISABLE the redesign. Go to your course "settings" and check under the tab "feature options". If you are not able to toggle thus feature off, then contact your school's Canvas administrator and ask if they can allow it to be toggled off by the instructor.