New UI:  Logout button

This topic was previously created but I feel it was prematurely closed. Given the majority of schools are still on the old interface (did I read approx 30% have switched?), I would like to re-open the topic for voting. We updated to the new UI in late December and the hard-to-find logout button has been an issue with our faculty.  Thank you.
 

🔎 This idea has been archived. While this idea isn't open for comments, it is an important part of Instructure’s idea conversations and development process. Contributions like this are valuable as Instructure prioritizes work on new or existing features.

15 Comments
biray
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

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Thank you for your submission,  @snarej . We wanted to call your attention to " modifiedtitle="true" title="New UI: Add logout button on the top right  which was submitted in a different voting period, but archived due to lack of votes or inadequate response. You may want to reference this idea for any insight.

Since we allow resubmission of old ideas, your idea will be open for vote in the next voting cycle.

In the meantime, help your idea gain traction by posting a link to this idea in the comments of the other, archived idea (which will notify author and anyone who is following the idea) and share your idea to colleagues and peers who you think would be supporters, as well.

jordan
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. February 3, 2016 - Wed. May 4, 2016.

Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works! Smiley Wink

admin_brake
Community Participant

Logging out should be obvious & one-click, right up front!

Why hide it?

Make it super easy, please!

Chris_Hofer
Community Coach
Community Coach

I'm still on the fence about having a separate "Logout" button.  If you take a look at very popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, and Expedia ... all these sites (once signed in) have you click on your name to logout of their sites.  To me, this seems to be more and more the "standard" for websites.

amberh
Community Novice

I understand that popular websites like to put this logout button out of view but I believe they have ulterior motives for this UX practice.

"By hiding the logout feature, you're more apt to simply close the browser or tab, but effectively remaining logged into a service. This allows Facebook to openly track your online whereabouts via advertising partnerships that all report back to Facebook." - logout - Why would a web site hide the log out button? - User Experience Stack Exchange

Canvas isn't the type of service that should encourage that you to stay logged in when you leave the website to collect your information for 3rd party services. Many students and employees have to log in to their accounts in public spaces such as classrooms, computer labs, and offices. We want to ensure the security of a users profile and really encourage them to remember to logout out so that another user doesn't find themselves on their account. I've seen many cases in computer labs where a student will submit their homework for a course, just to find out later that they submitted it on another students account and not their own. Things like this will still happen, but I believe they would be less frequent if there were a visual cue reminding a user to log out of the system.

snugent
Community Champion

I agree amberh​. We haven't implemented the new UI in production and this is making me nervous. I really want three things to stay in the upper right corner. (1) Person's Name. I use that as a reference point when I am masquerading and as  @ptart  pointed out in his feature idea, you have no way of knowing who is logged in when someone forgets to log out on a public computer. (2) The logout button. Just make it visible! Don't make people hunt for it. (3) Help link. In the new UI the help link is in worst possible location. People will never see it.  I have worked hard to train people to submit requests via the help link and I would prefer it stay in the same location. And as you notice in beta or test it is hidden by the pink bar.

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kona
Community Champion

YES! Everything snugent just said!

kmeeusen
Community Champion

I agree most concurrently snugent​ and  @kona ​

principal
Community Novice

I agree that the logout button should not be hidden under the account section.  However, I don't think we need to keep the upper right section.  A logout icon could easily be in the left navigation bar.  Also, the help icon should not be all the way at the bottom of the screen, but just under the rest of the icons.

Chris_Hofer
Community Coach
Community Coach

NavBar.jpgHere is something else I thought of.  In our classrooms, we have PCs / laptops that are connected to LCD projectors in IVC rooms or our Telepresence monitors.  The resolutions on the computers are different on those computers compared to what we might have on our own PC back at our desk (my wide-screen is 1920 x 1080).  For example, the image on the right is what it looks like on a laptop (1024x768 resolution) connected to our Telepresence monitor.  This is our "beta" environment, and we don't have the "Commons" button enabled here (we will in the "production" environment).  For most people, they won't have the "Admin" button, but you can see that the retail space for additional buttons is limited at this resolution.  It appears that this nav bar doesn't move when scrolling on the Dashboard...so if there was a separate logout button, how would instructors access it on one of those PCs?  In this case, the argument *for* keeping the logout button inside "Account" makes sense to me.  Though, I can totally understand the reasons why people would like a separate button.

hvaughn
Community Contributor

The Logout button needs to be easily accessible from any location within the Canvas environment. Upper right corner, left side global navigation, somewhere.  It just needs to be visible.  Always.  Hiding it is bad design and plain frustrating.  We are moving to the new UI in a week and this will be an issue. Students will not hunt around for the button and instead will simply close the browser, which does not log a user out of the system.  This will be a big problem on all our public computers in the labs, classrooms, and libraries.

mcsmith
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Our UI and UX teams have dug into this request. We have decided to leave the logout button as is at this time. We regularly conduct user testing to identify consistent problems. This is something we will keep an eye. 

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
  Idea is currently in Product Radar Learn more about this stage...
Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

 

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: Archived

This Idea is being archived as the Product Team determined that Instructure will not be making this change.