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Meanwhile, Blackboard software[1] continues to infect universities with its half-baked cash-grab approach to UX (slop on a nominal manifestation of a "feature"

Meanwhile, Blackboard software[1] continues to infect universities with its half-baked cash-grab approach to UX (slop on a nominal manifestation of a "feature" so that it can be listed in a sales-pitch checklist, then let it languish for years and move on to our next anti-interpretation of a UI fad we heard about 5 degrees removed). It is obvious why their HQ is located in Washington, D.C. [1] http://www.blackboard.com http://www.blackboard.com

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
I've used two other Virtual Learning Environments (Fronter, GLOW) and they were equally bad. Fronter, interestingly, has a very serious XSS vulnerability that my school got mad at me for pointing out.
- tjl 11y ago
  My university switched to DesireToLearn's software. It was terrible, especially when I was trying to enter grades. It was simpler and faster to export the grades, bring them into Excel, make the changes and then upload the new grades rather than deal with their horrid interface.
acdha 11y ago
You've just described basically all enterprise software. This is the somewhat inevitable outcome of a process where very large deals depend on a checklist but neither the implementers nor the buyers personally use the product.
- ssharp 11y ago
  So is this an effect of byers not having to use the product, or the fact that the checklist is huge and the software has to fit a ton of distinct use-cases that ultimately makes the software bad. I've never worked on enterprise software like that, so I'm honestly not sure. At a previous job, I had to bend Blackboard a little to do what I needed it to do and this was my only exposure to Blackboard from the admin/instructor side. I had interacted with it as a student and found it sufficient. From the admin side, it was certainly unintuitive, like most other enterprise software. However, also like most other enterprise software, once you used it enough and/or did the necessary training, it did make more sense. I'd be curious to know examples of enterprise software that is easy to learn and use without having to build experience or go through training.
  - acdha 11y ago
    > So is this an effect of byers not having to use the product, or the fact that the checklist is huge and the software has to fit a ton of distinct use-cases that ultimately makes the software bad. It's an artifact of the types of organizations which buy enterprise software and how well they [don't] handle communication and responsibility internally. Fundamentally, the results are rarely good when someone is buying software on behalf of someone else unless they have a deep understanding of how the other group works and where they spend the most time. One really common manifestation of this problem is when senior managers buy the software which gives them the reports which they want but doesn't consider how painful the process of entering the data is or whether the system design biases that data. Enterprise software exacerbates that problem because the business model is a one-time decision to make a very expensive purchase. Since correcting a mistake is hard-to-impossible, that tends to lead to “requirements” which include everything anyone has ever thought they might need, which favors the really large vendors who can afford to check most of those boxes and promise that their expensive consultants can customize the software after the fact to get the remaining ones, which has a near-certainty of resulting in the problem mentioned where someone implemented just enough to say they satisfied a requirement but will never improve it before the next round unless you cough up more money and since it's customized per-customer there's limited ability to get improvements which someone else paid for.
    - VLM 11y ago
      A very simple, obvious, possibly universal example of buyer and purchaser disconnect is well meaning grandma (or other non-gamer relative) buys kid the wrong video game. If you take the antics out of the sitcom TV trope and into a business, you can see the laugh track turn into agony. Another example or analogy that everyone probably has experience with is the old Robert Conquest's "Third Law" or fourth or whatever about all organizations devolving into appearing to be ruled by a cabal of their enemies, and if you think that manual hand operated torture devices are painful, wait until the same gang implements automated computerized high performance torture implements upon their organization. An organization that can tolerate the destructive influence of its leadership in a manual process arena might not survive automation of the destructive processes. But enough comedy (or is it merely snarky insight?) Two business sociology problems are empire building by complicated processes and projecting power by gatekeepers, both being short circuited by "the big automated system". There is also a psychological trap where automation systems are more accurately described as micromanagement systems, and two outcomes are possible under computerized micromanagement, one is a spontaneous rebellion where everyone knows they and everyone else are better off if the project fails so they do the obvious, and the other outcome is an organization that can be micromanaged is either already dead or solely exists as a theoretical construct, so the project flops.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
My understanding is that its hard to be competitive in this space because Blackboard is very patent litigious. Patent 6,988,138 “Internet-based education support system and methods” is considered overly-broad and has been used against competitors. An East Texas jury gave Blackboard 2.5m in damages in a suit against a competitor in 2008 using this patent. Read the patent, it a complete cockup, by the already low standards of the USPTO. The abstract is laughable because its so broad: A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide.
- hippich 11y ago
  I believe about 3 years ago, a lot of top management of Blackboard was changed. And focus right now, at least how employees see it, is on quality of software.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Abstracts don't define the patent, claims do. In the UK the abstract is part of the patentee's submission, but examiners would redraft them as needed to make them useful. IIRC the USPTO doesn't spend any resources on abstract re-drafting(?) and so abstracts are very poor. US6988138 is "EXPIRED DUE TO FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEE" as of 2014; note that in 2010 it was "EXPIRED DUE TO REEXAMINATION WHICH CANCELED ALL CLAIMS"!
nso95 11y ago
The UX makes no sense, they obviously don't use their own software or do any sort of user testing.
dang 11y ago
Ouch, please let's not go off topic like this. Whimsical asides are one thing, but tangents of indignation are coal to Newcastle.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

I've used two other Virtual Learning Environments (Fronter, GLOW) and they were equally bad. Fronter, interestingly, has a very serious XSS vulnerability that my school got mad at me for pointing out.

tjl 11y ago
My university switched to DesireToLearn's software. It was terrible, especially when I was trying to enter grades. It was simpler and faster to export the grades, bring them into Excel, make the changes and then upload the new grades rather than deal with their horrid interface.

acdha 11y ago

You've just described basically all enterprise software. This is the somewhat inevitable outcome of a process where very large deals depend on a checklist but neither the implementers nor the buyers personally use the product.

ssharp 11y ago
So is this an effect of byers not having to use the product, or the fact that the checklist is huge and the software has to fit a ton of distinct use-cases that ultimately makes the software bad. I've never worked on enterprise software like that, so I'm honestly not sure. At a previous job, I had to bend Blackboard a little to do what I needed it to do and this was my only exposure to Blackboard from the admin/instructor side. I had interacted with it as a student and found it sufficient. From the admin side, it was certainly unintuitive, like most other enterprise software. However, also like most other enterprise software, once you used it enough and/or did the necessary training, it did make more sense. I'd be curious to know examples of enterprise software that is easy to learn and use without having to build experience or go through training.
- acdha 11y ago
  > So is this an effect of byers not having to use the product, or the fact that the checklist is huge and the software has to fit a ton of distinct use-cases that ultimately makes the software bad. It's an artifact of the types of organizations which buy enterprise software and how well they [don't] handle communication and responsibility internally. Fundamentally, the results are rarely good when someone is buying software on behalf of someone else unless they have a deep understanding of how the other group works and where they spend the most time. One really common manifestation of this problem is when senior managers buy the software which gives them the reports which they want but doesn't consider how painful the process of entering the data is or whether the system design biases that data. Enterprise software exacerbates that problem because the business model is a one-time decision to make a very expensive purchase. Since correcting a mistake is hard-to-impossible, that tends to lead to “requirements” which include everything anyone has ever thought they might need, which favors the really large vendors who can afford to check most of those boxes and promise that their expensive consultants can customize the software after the fact to get the remaining ones, which has a near-certainty of resulting in the problem mentioned where someone implemented just enough to say they satisfied a requirement but will never improve it before the next round unless you cough up more money and since it's customized per-customer there's limited ability to get improvements which someone else paid for.
  - VLM 11y ago
    A very simple, obvious, possibly universal example of buyer and purchaser disconnect is well meaning grandma (or other non-gamer relative) buys kid the wrong video game. If you take the antics out of the sitcom TV trope and into a business, you can see the laugh track turn into agony. Another example or analogy that everyone probably has experience with is the old Robert Conquest's "Third Law" or fourth or whatever about all organizations devolving into appearing to be ruled by a cabal of their enemies, and if you think that manual hand operated torture devices are painful, wait until the same gang implements automated computerized high performance torture implements upon their organization. An organization that can tolerate the destructive influence of its leadership in a manual process arena might not survive automation of the destructive processes. But enough comedy (or is it merely snarky insight?) Two business sociology problems are empire building by complicated processes and projecting power by gatekeepers, both being short circuited by "the big automated system". There is also a psychological trap where automation systems are more accurately described as micromanagement systems, and two outcomes are possible under computerized micromanagement, one is a spontaneous rebellion where everyone knows they and everyone else are better off if the project fails so they do the obvious, and the other outcome is an organization that can be micromanaged is either already dead or solely exists as a theoretical construct, so the project flops.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

My understanding is that its hard to be competitive in this space because Blackboard is very patent litigious. Patent 6,988,138 “Internet-based education support system and methods” is considered overly-broad and has been used against competitors. An East Texas jury gave Blackboard 2.5m in damages in a suit against a competitor in 2008 using this patent. Read the patent, it a complete cockup, by the already low standards of the USPTO. The abstract is laughable because its so broad: A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide.

hippich 11y ago
I believe about 3 years ago, a lot of top management of Blackboard was changed. And focus right now, at least how employees see it, is on quality of software.
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Abstracts don't define the patent, claims do. In the UK the abstract is part of the patentee's submission, but examiners would redraft them as needed to make them useful. IIRC the USPTO doesn't spend any resources on abstract re-drafting(?) and so abstracts are very poor. US6988138 is "EXPIRED DUE TO FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEE" as of 2014; note that in 2010 it was "EXPIRED DUE TO REEXAMINATION WHICH CANCELED ALL CLAIMS"!

nso95 11y ago

The UX makes no sense, they obviously don't use their own software or do any sort of user testing.

dang 11y ago

Ouch, please let's not go off topic like this. Whimsical asides are one thing, but tangents of indignation are coal to Newcastle.