Updated Canvas interface at USU unveiled summer semester 2016
Canvas will be updated for all Utah State University students right after spring semester ends, providing a more flexible and icon-based interface.
The newest and possibly most exciting is the collapsible nature of the newer interface, with everything in the screen adjusting as the window on a computer grows or shrinks. This is also the case for when Canvas is used on smaller mobile devices, like phones or tablets, said Neal Legler, the assistant director of the USU’s Center for Innovative Design & Instruction (CIDI).
“Everything is more icon-based, so your courses are now separate from your groups. There are some slight adjustments just in the overall styling, the whole thing is more responsive,” he said.
Instead of the course menu being along the top of the Canvas home page for each student and faculty member, there will be a more global navigation which is collapsable on the side bar, no matter the screen someone is on, Legler said.
The to-do list will still be clear along the right side of the screen, with an iconic main menu on the left side to navigate between courses, the assignment calendar and other options.
“When Instructure went and worked on re-designing this interface, one of their goals was to do away with the rainbow … they wanted to make it a little bit more compressed,” Legler said. The rainbow is when a mouse has to move from one part of the screen all the way up and across to the other side, in a rainbow shape, to mainly navigate. The new structure is set to eliminate this, with menus in more intuitive locations.
Canvas was designed and is run by Instructure, a company that creates software for academic settings. However, many of the programmers in CIDI at USU have come to find more ways that Canvas works for students and faculty, which Instructure — and other universities using Canvas — have come to adopt.
Kenneth Larsen, a programmer and analyst for USU’s Teaching and Learning Technology program (which works alongside with CIDI in many ways), is one who started delving into the potential changes and adjustments that could be made to Canvas, to better serve students and faculty members using it on campus.
Many teachers have looked to expand Canvas and what it can do for them in their courses, and Larsen has been the one to come up with many of these new developments, Legler said.
“I take what they want, either our instructional designers or instructors come in and want, things that they want Canvas to do that Canvas doesn’t do natively, and I figure out how to make Canvas do that,” Larsen said. “I’ve built quite a few tools that help faculty quickly build their courses, things to style and give templates to their courses so that people who don’t know how to write HTML or CSS can have styled content.”
Larsen doesn’t just work on things to help faculty, however. He hopes to make Canvas more and more user-friendly for students using it, as well.
“I like to build tools that make it easier for students to track their progress through a course, so things that faculty can quickly and easily add that visually allow students to see where they are and what’s required of them,” Larsen said.
The most exciting thing about this update in Larsen’s opinion is how responsive the new interface will be, so that it can be used more easily on any kind or size of device. They are still finding more ways for the updates on the mobile app to be more engaging and interactive, so that it doesn’t all just need to be used at full capacity on a computer, Larsen said.
The updated interface will be revealed on May 7 at 6 a.m., according to a message posted on the current Canvas homepage earlier in April.
“The new UI (user interface) is an updated interface that is more responsive to the devices that you use,” the message reads. “On smaller screens, while viewing a course, the course navigation menu can be collapsed, allowing you to focus more on the content, and the default font is more readable.”
More information about the updated interface can be found at: cidi.usu.edu/newcanvasui.
— mandy.m.morgan@aggiemail.usu.edu
@mandy_morg