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swind · ‎06-03-2021

+1 to the above comments. I also think of "Start Here" language as something for new users that is dismissed after mobile app onboarding is completed. Button labeling aside, looking at the screenshots my initial reaction is that the "action sheet" list feels disconnected from courses. When selecting Speedgrader (for teachers) or Submit an Assignment (for students), which course is this for? -will I have to select from a course list next? In general, I support efforts to reduce the number of actions required by the user to get to their desired screen but, based on the mockup, I'm not convinced that a Start Here button accomplishes this goal. I agree with @rake_9 that making improvements to the original navigation would be worthwhile. Having said that, I like the student grades/assignments "Summary" options. I'm not sure if something like that already exists in the mobile app (I haven't opened it in a while), but I suspect those are the most frequently accessed features.

swind · ‎02-23-2021

In Course Settings, selecting the (?) icon next to Visibility opens a modal window with limited help text that doesn't fully describe the feature or its limitations (the Content Licensing Help text, by comparison, is quite comprehensive). This help screen could be greatly improved with descriptive text and a link to Canvas documentation for more information, as follows. -- Title: Course Visibility Help Course visibility options can be customized to allow unenrolled or unauthenticated users to view courses. Course (default): Enrolled users can view all published content Institution: Authenticated users can view content without being enrolled Public: Unauthenticated users can view content Institution or Public setting does not allow unenrolled/unauthenticated users to view Announcements, Calendar, Collaborations, Conferences*, Grades, Outcomes, or People. * Institution users can see a concluded conference, but cannot join or listen. To learn more about visibility options, please see Canvas Course Visibility Options (PDF). -- Current modal window with help text: Current Visibility Setting Help Text

swind · ‎12-17-2020

Hi @peytoncraighill, thanks for your responsiveness to our feedback. It can be confusing to users when a button changes appearance or position but still functions the same, so for clarity, I propose the following: Add a text label to all instances of the Student View button Maintain consistent top-right placement in all areas, including Home Our instructors are in the habit of accessing this feature from the Home page. As an admin, I didn't even realize the Student View button appears on the course settings page. I don't think it belongs there in this new quick toggle context, and suggest it be removed.

swind · ‎12-14-2020

+1 to a Student View button text label. In addition to the comments here from the Canvas Community, see the Nielsen Norman Group's article on Icon Usability. "Summary: A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. Due to the absence of a standard usage for most icons, text labels are necessary to communicate the meaning and reduce ambiguity."

swind · ‎12-07-2020

When an assignment is configured to Display Grade as Points, Speedgrader will not accept non-numeric values in the grade field. If a letter grade or other invalid input is entered, the grade field simply clears once it's deselected and no warning message is displayed to the user. Graders who enter letter grades instead of points may not realize these scores aren't being saved. Speedgrader should display an invalid grade warning icon and message consistent with the warnings displayed in the Gradebook. Gradebook warning: Speedgrader mockup:

swind · ‎10-07-2020

Adding my voice in support of warning students when they submit a blank question. We received an automated response to our support case 06652800 stating that the "...Product & Engineering team has reviewed this issue and determined it is functioning correctly: No warning will show to students if they do not answer a question in a quiz." The "functioning correctly" argument holds no weight against the thorough reasoning that @RogerThat outlined above. I agree that the question needs to be reframed: @Stef_retired why has Canvas decided to NOT include a warning?

swind · ‎02-26-2020

Colors do need to be differentiated for accessibility, but this can be done with a pattern overlay. Trello does a good job with this. https://wearecolorblind.com/examples/trello-colorblind-friendly-mode/ I agree on the 5 (not 3) point scale, but I still feel that introducing shapes adds unnecessary complexity, however minor.

swind · ‎02-25-2020

I second expanding the range to 5 with Blue/Green/Yellow/Orange/Red color coding, though I don't think smileys will go over well with our faculty. A generic filled circle or rectangle shape is fine. There's no need to bother with half-filled shapes if we're using colors to appropriately communicate ranges.

swind · ‎02-19-2020

Update, one year later. It looks like the previous ticket is still with our engineers, and we will reach out to you with any updates we have. I've requested that this item be added to the Canvas Current Issues page. https://community.canvaslms.com/community/labs/pages/home

swind · ‎02-19-2020

Agreed. We've received many questions/complaints about the inability to hide or edit the Course Summary. Giving instructors a choice will help alleviate this pain point.

swind · ‎01-08-2020

I like your suggestion @dbrace ‌ to use checkboxes instead of a dropdown menu. This seems to strike the right balance between user flexibility and admin management, and avoids having to create an unwieldy list of pronoun permutations. I'm hoping that a future iteration of the pronoun field will allow us to import values from SIS data.

swind · ‎10-23-2019

Same here. I enabled the Training Services Portal help menu link in beta, but clicking it simply leads to a "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" screen.

swind · ‎09-20-2019

In addition to the comments made above, if you'd like to learn more about the topic of pronouns and why they're important I've found MyPronouns.org Resources on Personal Pronouns to be a helpful reference.

swind · ‎08-28-2019

Good point about the localization, I hadn't considered that detail. I think we're in agreement that some kind of indicator is needed in addition to the eye/crossed eye.

swind · ‎08-28-2019

As other's have noted, the Updated Iconography needs more work. The standard design convention (and what users expect) is "eye = visible" and "crossed eye = hidden." This should remain consistent regardless of posting policy. Some other indicator can be used else to distinguish manual vs. automatic posting policy, such as the manual gearbox chriscas‌ suggested, or dots, or simply the letters M or A.

swind · ‎02-11-2019

Assignments that are due at 11:59pm are marked as all-day events in the Calendar Feed and do not have specific start & end times. As a result, these events do not adjust based on timezone. This is especially problematic for remote students. For example, here's how course events appear in the Canvas Calendar for a student in a different timezone. Note the Live Discussion taking place on Thursday, Feb. 31 at 8:59am. Here's how the same events appear in Google Calendar. Note the Live Discussion is shown all-day on Wednesday, Feb. 30th. Wrong day, wrong time. Currently, this behavior is not reflected in the documentation. How do I subscribe to the Calendar feed using Google Calendar as a student? How do I subscribe to the Calendar feed using Google Calendar as an instructor? Here's a code snippet from the ICS file. Note the hardcoded Date values and no (T)imes specified. BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20190126T154900Z UID:event-assignment-override-113018 DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20190103T000000 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20190103T000000 CLASS:PUBLIC Canvas Support reported that "...Our engineers have decided that this is intentional for now." I disagree for the reasons noted above. All events in the Calendar Feed should include start & end times, as they do in the Canvas Calendar.

swind · ‎02-04-2019

This issue is also affecting our users. The workaround that Canvas support suggested is to resave/convert/enhance the PDF using desktop software, however, this is an incomplete solution since there's no clear indicator to faculty or student that something is missing in the original PDF when viewed in Canvas. Here are a few relevant notes from my support case. I've been working with our Level 2 agents who have seen this problem with some PDF files that are uploaded to Canvas. The L2 agent informed me that since PDFs can have complex layers and encoding within them. If there's anything missing in the PDF's code, then the Docviewer may not render the file completely. Reconverting the file allows the external software to convert the file back into PDF which usually resolves the missing bit of code that was causing the Docviewer problems when rendering. I understand some PDF files are previewing incorrectly in DocViewer. This can happen because of software specific layering, metadata or other configurations in the way the PDF is saved. Unfortunately, I would not have a way of determining exactly which PDF settings were configured to prevent our previewer from being able to display all the pages.

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Re: Start here!

Improve Course Visibility Setting Help Text

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2020-12-19)

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2020-12-19)

[Speedgrader] Grade Validation Error in Speedgrade...

Re: New Quizzes: Display warning message if backtr...

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2020-03-21)

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2020-03-21)

Re: Why don't PDFs display all their content in th...

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2020-03-21)

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2020-01-18)

Re: Canvas Release Notes (2019-11-16)

Re: Add a field for Pronouns to the Profile Page

Re: Post Policy Updates Feedback

Re: Post Policy Updates Feedback

[Calendar] Assignments due at 11:59pm should NOT ...

Re: Why don't PDFs display all their content in th...