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Back in March, I announced the upcoming "renovation" of Impact and this is the best milestone yet! As you hopefully know, Impact has been laser-focused on improving its accessibility, usability, and cohesion over the last year. This redesign milestone, which will be released next week, focuses on all things regarding navigation in the Dashboard to make Impact more intuitive while also moving to InstUI components for accessibility and ensuring cohesiveness across the Instructure product family. We are so grateful for those of you who contributed your time and energy to brainstorm ideas and validate the designs; thank you! An image of the newly redesigned and super sleek main navigation is below and we’ll dig deeper into the specifics in this blog post.
What’s new and/or changed?
1. Communication Hub
We’ve combined Campaigns, Messages, and Walkthroughs into a unified dropdown menu under a new main navigation item called Communication along with pertinent settings functionality like the ability to reset message views and adjust voting settings. This new structure allows users to manage and access all communication tools in one place, streamlining workflows and making it easier for admins to find what they need.
2. Updated Insights
To further consolidate and simplify the main navigation, the new LTI Usage feature now resides under the Insights main navigation menu. Additionally, what was previously the “Insights” page is now a dropdown item called Impact Insights, giving you a more intuitive and organized way to access your edtech usage and adoption data and insights.
3. Enhanced Admin Experience
A new Admin main navigation item has been added, housing features such as Target User Groups, Contexts, Tool Categories, Users & Permissions, LTI Keys, and Impact Status. Instructure Admins also get a dedicated section for Advanced Settings and Translations.
Previously, User Groups and Custom User Groups were two separate menu options and have now been grouped into Target user groups to help clarify their role and streamline targeting of users for messaging and support. The table menu items now have the updated search bar, filter button, and Columns Visibility button. The other areas of the Admin section feature updated and cohesive table menu items as well.
4. *New* Quick Access Create Button
The addition of a Create button to the main navigation reduces steps to take action. This dropdown menu allows you to quickly create a Campaign, Message, Walkthrough, or Support Article. Support Articles have a secondary menu for creating new or importing from external sources, giving you flexibility and efficiency.
5. Simplified Instance Display Button
The instance button has been updated to display only the instance type and domain, with full details accessible via a tooltip upon hover. This change keeps the interface clean while still providing relevant information when needed.
6. Contextualized Settings Pages
Previously, there were multiple settings pages that contained different items lacking cohesiveness. All pages previously under the various settings pages have been reorganized and contextualized throughout the product in a logical manner, ensuring they are easily accessible in their relevant areas and improving usability. Those changes are as follows:
A Configuration button has been added to the top right-hand corner of the Impact Insights page featuring newly created Data Management and Insights settings areas. This is an area that you likely use much less frequently to review or update the elements, presentation, and settings of data and analytics for your Impact instance.
The Data Management area includes the Monitors, Reporting Templates, and LTI Tools pages.
The Insights settings option pops open a modal allowing you to adjust your Tool Adoption visualization options.
7. Intuitive Sub Menus
Both Messages and Walkthroughs received a simplification of their menus placing the Insights and Create buttons in the top right-hand corner as calls to action and more clear and cohesive options for their tables with the updated filter button and Columns Visibility button. You’ll also see new quick facts at the top showing how many messages and walkthroughs are published or in draft.
Similar to Messages and Walkthroughs, Campaigns also has a clearer top navigation featuring a count of how many Campaigns you have running, in draft, scheduled, and concluded at all times along with the updated buttons.
The Support page header and menu is much more minimalistic, grouping actions together in a logical manner and providing better visibility into the status of your Support Center with a label under the header.
A Customization button has been added to the top-right hand corner where you will find the three areas of the Support Center usually leveraged during implementation and then to make occasional adjustments. Those include: Support Center access; Design Routing & Availability; and Support Center settings.
Support Center access is now a simple modal window.
Design, Routing & Availability are grouped together to help in the ease of the set-up of your Support Center
Then, Support Center settings are contained in a simple modal and placed contextually inside of the Support area now.
Screenshot of Support Center settings modal
8. Simplified User Profile Dropdown Menu
The User Profile area now features a simple dropdown menu of three items specific to you as an individual: Language for which you’d like to view the Dashboard, Two-Factor Authentication, and the ability to Log out.
Screenshot of User Profile dropdown menu
9. Updated Instance Configuration Tray
The pop-out tray has been updated to contain only items related to your instance configuration, which include a link to Switch instances, Instance settings, and a button to Connect or Disconnect your LMS user.
The Switch instance option is now a pop-up modal with the same search functionality
Instance settings are now contained within a simple modal window as well.
10. Bonus, *New* Login Page
Each quarter, Instructure R&D holds a Hackweek and teams are encouraged to pursue something that is fulfilling and/or exciting to them. At the end of Q3, our fabulous designer and one of our amazing front-end software engineers teamed up to design and deliver a fresh, new log-in page! If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s gorgeous and I am in love (log out and log back in, just to bask in its beauty)!
Screenshot of Impact login page
This portion of the redesign not only enhances the accessibility and cohesion of Impact but also improves the overall usability of the application. We want to save you time and energy by making it easier for you to navigate throughout Impact, so that you have more time to focus on what truly matters—teaching and learning! Please explore these changes and let us know your thoughts and questions. Stay tuned to the Product Blog for more updates as we continue to enhance Impact!
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