41 ms·

Zillion empty pages is old interface, not new one. In new interface, me and many other are actively working right now, UI is way less cluttered. This is what m

by hippich 11y ago

Zillion empty pages is old interface, not new one. In new interface, me and many other are actively working right now, UI is way less cluttered. This is what me and others were hired to fix. Promo video probably did not address it well enough (which is good to know.) I think [1] might give you better idea (although it is too much time to spend unless you are really interested in it.) You will notice, that some parts of UI are still old, but these are going to be replaced bit by bit, since Blackboard moved to continuous deployment model (which again, became possible only recently as schools became more relaxed toward keeping data "in the cloud". [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLontYaReEU1tCbsCDP-u_wsKdkDBegIhH https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLontYaReEU1tCbsCDP-u_...

jules 11y ago
That looks much better, but most of what I said still applies. Too many pages, info that people actually need is missing or hard to get at. It looks like this is focused on middle/high school though, where that may not apply. For universities a lot of info that students need seems to be missing, but those videos show a teacher's view so maybe it is there but not visible to teachers. Messages: nobody will use this, everyone uses email or facebook. You cannot win that battle. Replace feature with an email address link. Calendar: great, make this the homepage and display WAY more info per page. Assignments: good, but no need for a separate page; should just be accessible via the calendar. More ways of getting at the same info is bad. Activity stream: should just be in the calendar. The UI shown there is also still quite bad. Watch the discussions video for example. "You can easily create a discussion right on the course content page" -> click on "courses" -> select the course -> click on (+) circle -> click on "create" -> click on "participation and engagement" -> click on "discussion". Really? Of course this is another feature that nobody will use. No student is going to participate in a discussion topic opened by a teacher on blackboard. Instead should replace this with a feature where students can post a question (like stackoverflow) and where the teacher and other students can answer. THAT is useful, if students can actually know that somebody will actually read their question and they are not just posting in a place that nobody will ever look at. Therefore it needs prominent placement on the course main page. Not a link to the discussions tab, which has further links to each question, which is a page with the actual question. The actual questions that were asked should be right on the course's main page.

by hippich 11y ago

jules 11y ago

That looks much better, but most of what I said still applies. Too many pages, info that people actually need is missing or hard to get at. It looks like this is focused on middle/high school though, where that may not apply. For universities a lot of info that students need seems to be missing, but those videos show a teacher's view so maybe it is there but not visible to teachers. Messages: nobody will use this, everyone uses email or facebook. You cannot win that battle. Replace feature with an email address link. Calendar: great, make this the homepage and display WAY more info per page. Assignments: good, but no need for a separate page; should just be accessible via the calendar. More ways of getting at the same info is bad. Activity stream: should just be in the calendar. The UI shown there is also still quite bad. Watch the discussions video for example. "You can easily create a discussion right on the course content page" -> click on "courses" -> select the course -> click on (+) circle -> click on "create" -> click on "participation and engagement" -> click on "discussion". Really? Of course this is another feature that nobody will use. No student is going to participate in a discussion topic opened by a teacher on blackboard. Instead should replace this with a feature where students can post a question (like stackoverflow) and where the teacher and other students can answer. THAT is useful, if students can actually know that somebody will actually read their question and they are not just posting in a place that nobody will ever look at. Therefore it needs prominent placement on the course main page. Not a link to the discussions tab, which has further links to each question, which is a page with the actual question. The actual questions that were asked should be right on the course's main page.