Remove colour overlay from course cards that have an image

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:

200569_canvas_demo_1.pngcanvas_demo_1.png

200579_canvas_demo_2.pngcanvas_demo_2.png

 

And the ideal/requested behaviour:

200580_canvas_demo_3.pngcanvas_demo_3.png

 

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) 

208 Comments
stuart_ryan
Community Novice

That is not good.  @Renee_Carney ​ is this point something that would best be raised as a separate bug?

Cheers,

Stuart

SHEBENE
Community Champion

I'm not sure it would be a bug as white isn't a color choice but something people are custom picking for themselves. I think separating the overlay from the card highlight color (like some of the examples have shown) so the card-color still matches the calendar layer is the best option. That still requires a re-design for Canvas though. I would imagine the only temp-fix for white messing up the calendar text would be to either block white as an option for color cards or to have all text default to black on calendar and the outline and icon are the selected color. Still iffy though. I imagine if they plan to give us some fine-tuning ability stemming from this feature request, in the meantime they will likely just recommend people don't pick white instead of implementing a fix that's over-written by an update soon after.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

laurakgibbs
Community Champion

Luckily, the calendar view my students most rely on is the one that appears on the homepage of a course in the right-hand sidebar, and it is not affected by the display problems for the Calendar overall. Also, I've been strongly encouraging students to try synching the Canvas Calendar to the calendar they really use (Outlook, Google, etc.), and that also is not affected by the color crisis. Given that students cannot create recurring events in the Canvas Calendar (ARGH!!!), that means the calendar is not really useful as a tool to manage their studying and time planning overall anyway.

Screen Shot 2016-11-28 at 4.28.19 PM.png

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

Greetings All.

I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge that we know this idea has gone a while without an official comment.  It is not that we are ignoring it.  We are looking through the many use cases shared and discussing potential solutions.  We do not have anything scoped at this time, but we would like to leave this idea in 'gathering information' a while longer - as we truly gather more information on it.

Thank you.

deangelisa
Community Member

Hello Renee Carney!

A more important issue is the default view of the modules. An option for a “Collapsed by Default” will make the Modules page more friendly. My Modules look overwhelming with all the listing of readings and assignments. This is a very important issue, much more important than the color overlay. My college chose to replace Blackboard by Canvas, although it’s being preached Canvas’s is better because its simplicity, the loss of functionality is evident. The arrangement in clean simple links leading to assignments is very important. At the end of the semester, the Module page will look as long as the Carta Magna scroll… not practical. Please, address functional items before aesthetics.

Thank you for your kind attention,

Adrian E. De Angelis

Instructor - Electronics Technology

MJC - Technical Education

Sierra Hall 110B

http://deangelisa.faculty.mjc.edu<http://deangelisa.faculty.mjc.edu/>;

209-575-6088

stuart_ryan
Community Novice

Hi Renee,

Thanks so much for the update, it would be awesome to hear what some of the potential solutions are so that we can help provide input into that process (when it is appropriate).

Looking forward to hearing what the product management wizards and development warlocks have come up with.

Cheers,

Stuart

rgibson1
Community Champion

Just do what you showed us in Colorado in July. 😉

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @deangelisa ​, since the modules view is clearly of concern to you, you'll undoubtedly want to add your vote and feedback to if you haven't already; at the moment, that idea is still open for voting and is in Product Radar status.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

Hi Rob.

I want to preface this by saying I am being genuine and not snarky at all.

I have been following this thread since the very beginning and have been confused by the claim that a different design was shown in Colorado.  I usually sit in on demos and other conversations with product, and this is the only design (with slight modifications) I've seen, including July and before.  What demo are you referencing?  I would love to see if it was recorded (mostly so I know the 1:1 comparison).

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

We love the enthusiasm our users have when it comes to making Canvas more Awesome!!!

We'll definitely make something available as soon as we have more info!