The decision of website choice was heavily inspired by the user experience that one of the Professors had in the Communication Leadership graduate department. The comments that were given gave the curiosity to think that if those with mouse navigation have problems with the website, what could the problems be for those who navigate with the keyboard? Canvas is a platform that serves 30 million users and a little over 60,000 are UW students. The research took on accessibility with WAVE tool analysis, 3 heuristic evaluations with participants involved with the university, and the discovery of 5 flaws using keyboard navigation. After the research, the data resulted in 3 redesigns recommendation focused on the improvement of the experience.
In the beginning, it was difficult to identify a website to research because of how well-designed the popular platforms have with Accessibility and satisfaction with the experience of the user. I also feared that my choice of a website could have been chosen by another classmate and potentially finding similar problems but luckily, the start of the initial research phase was heavily influenced by the experience that one of the Professors from the Communication Leadership department. TheProfessor had difficulty navigating a Canvas course page and struggled to have a positive experience, in which case I thought if a user is struggling with the mouse what flaws could the keyboard navigators contact thus, I committed to choosing the UW Canvas Student Portal page as my website choice.
I wanted to start by providing datapoints to consider as we start the research phase and so let us analyze the quantity and whom we are solving the problems for. Canvas is a platform that provides management and assessment services for educational purposes to institutions and other educational schools. As a product of the parent company Instructure, it serves 30 million users worldwide. The University of Washington is a public research university that houses 3 campuses in Bothell, Tacoma, andSeattle being the center. As of 2022, the University of Washington serves60,081 combined on all 3 campuses. The University of Washington DRS (Disability Resources for Students) service provides accommodations for 2,800+ students. Although we could be potentially solving problems for many individuals around the globe, we will solely place our attention on the audience of UW students.
During the accessibility analysis, we took the UW Canvas Student Portal website to the test and tried shaking it down to discover any flaws with keyboard navigation and with the WAVE Accessibility tool. Over the course of 2 days, we have discovered 6 potential flaws on the website that could affect the experience of the user, especially those who need to navigate with the keyboard. These are the 6 flaws, their findings, and their solutions to the flaws:
*Initially, the first and last flaws were presented as two separate flaws in the Accessibility Assessment presentation but after the second consideration later in the research phase, both were merged because they are on the same UI page.
In this heuristic/user journeys examination, we will be conducting 3 tasks that participants will try to complete. As they are completing the tasks, I will be taking notes and guiding them if they ask for any help. For the 3 tasks, participants will be on the Student Canvas web portal for the University of Washington institution and do their best to complete the task. The areas that will be covered include adding a photo to your profile, viewing grades from all current and past enrolled courses, and favoriting or unfavoriting a course. The tasks will be conducted with a laptop and with the possibility of the actions being recorded for research purposes.
A script was created to mimic a real-world scenario in which the participants felt like they were in an actual heuristic evaluation environment.
For the environment of the examination, 2 of the evaluations were conducted through the video-sharing platform Zoom and the 3rd was conducted in person at the Odegaard Library at the University of Washington Seattle campus. There is no fixed location for Canvas users because of its access outside of the academic environment, users can access the Canvas platform while being in any kind of environment so the locations and approaches in which the examinations were conducted were acceptable in its location environments. The heuristic evaluation with the participants determines critical pinpoints to consider for improvement on the tasks that they experienced. Tasks from adding a photo to their profile, finding the grade percentage of all their enrolled courses, and adding their favorite feature to any specific course were examined and analyzed by the participants
All 3 participants were unfamiliar with most of the Canvas website since they are recent international students or used a different platform before being UW students. During the process of the 3 tasks, all 3 participants were able to quickly complete the first task with ease in a matter of 25 to 40 seconds. From the 2nd and 3rd tasks, it was estimated that it was completed in about 4-7 minutes. All 3 participants had to scan the Canvas pages carefully to find the task and be able to complete it. After the completion of the 3 tasks, the same statement that was given in the 2nd and 3rd tasks was that “I didn’t know the feature existed.” All participants shared similar frustrations, confusion, and irritation after going through the last 2 tasks. The last 2 tasks affected their experience heavily because of the secrecy in which the features were located and the lack of understanding of the purpose behind the features.
After the research phase of accessibility and heuristic evaluation/user journeys, we move forward onto the design phase in which we design potential recommendations which it should improve the experience of the user. Since the 1st task from the heuristic evaluation didn’t have a conflict with completion, I would only suggest that rather than having to go into the Profile subcategory from the Account tab on the main page, we should eliminate steps to reach the task and allow users to hover over the account icon when they click on the Account tab and be able to add a photo for their Canvas account.
Starting with one of the accessibility issues that was uncovered, we looked at the issue of not having access to the Calendar in Canvas with keyboard navigation and not having access to the Month and Week button once the “accessibility” UI is selected. During the design thinking, I thought about the access that users should be able to receive and the design for inclusivity in keyboard navigation. If you wish to view the findings, visit the first bullet point in the Accessibility Assessment section. These are the design recommendations that I believe will help solve the issue and provide a better experience for the user:
Buttons are accessible in keyboard navigation so having the dates in the Calendar be buttons would allow the users to access the Calendar space. Making the Month, Agenda, and Week intuitive and accessible regardless of the UI and lastly changing the name of the buttons from Month to Default and from Agenda to Accessibility.
The second design recommendation follows the second task that was conducted during the heuristic evaluation/user journey. The recommendations are influenced by the suggestions and comment that the participants as well as thoughts that came to mind when analyzing the data. The task was analyzed from the outcome of the participants and on the navigation from the keyboard. From the outcomes, it was noted that:
These findings were crucial in gaining from the evaluation because I was able to learn about the difficulty of its discovery and the issue with its placement and based on the findings, these are the design recommendations that I believe will help solve the issue of frustrations and purpose and improve the experience for the user:
The participants struggled to discover the feature based on its location, being in the Dashboard rather than an environment where its relatable made the feature difficult to discover and people don’t normally scroll down in the Dashboard page and thus is the cause for the long timespan of its discovery. Moving the location from the Dashboard to the Courses tab will make the feature visible and easily accessible by both the mouse and keyboard navigators.
The third design recommendation focuses on the third task that was conducted during the heuristic evaluation/user journey. The ideal process that the participants should have taken was Dashboard/Homepage -> CoursesTab -> All Courses Button -> Click a Star to Favorite or Unclick a Star to Unfavorite. A 4-step process that resulted in participants taking additional steps which took more time than anticipated and left them with a negative experience. The results from the heuristic evaluation and the comments that were given by the participants like the second task left tremendous potential for improvements in the experience. The findings that were observed include:
Because these results were like the results from the second task, it was taken into consideration for redesigns to better improve the experience. These recommendations are designed to improve the issue of discovery and purpose and allow the user to have the task completed in a matter of seconds.
Participants struggled to find the feature which resulted in frustration and irritation. Participants passed by the button that would direct them to the feature which was the key issue. This feature seemed to be hidden from the users. The redesign of the star being placed inside the card of the course would allow users to find the feature in a matter of seconds and figure out its purpose as well. I would also consider placing the star inside the course page of a class for those who are on the course page. While the star will be available for favoriting, those who want to easily remove a course card in the Dashboard can do so by clicking on the X on the top left. This is only available when a course card doesn’t have the star selected.
With the execution of the redesigns and all the data collected from two sessions, I would want to move forward with a few routes to ensure whether the ideal redesigns will truly be beneficial to the improvement of the experience. With A/B and Usability testing, I would carry out testing sessions with previous participants to have them test out the new redesigns in the scenarios that they were told to be in at the evaluation phase and potentially try to bring in new perspectives to review the redesigns and compare the time it takes to complete the tasks. From that stage, I would want to figure out whether these redesigns solve the issues that arose during the research phase. Ideally, I would conduct the sessions through Zoom to provide accommodations and to observe from the screens of the participants as they are performing the tasks but if participants would prefer in-person, in-person is perfect as well.
After conducting these sessions, I would gather data by asking questions relating to their experience. For the participants who have participated before, I would ask them about their experience with the redesigns and how they would compare the emotions from the previous session to this new participation and learn whether their experience this time was positive or if stayed the same. For the new perspectives, I would focus on their initial thoughts and how they felt as they went through these scenarios. I would navigate the questions to learn about the journey that the new participants went through and analyze whether there were any negative experiences. From both sides of the spectrum, I would gather the new data and finalize my findings and suggestions for the redesigns and concisely finish writing up my final thoughts on the overall improvements for the Canvas Student Portal website.
I never realized that designing for accessibility would change my approach to creating for users. Through my research, personal experiences, and by putting myself in the shoes of individuals who rely on accessibility tools, I learned that this group is often excluded from the decision-making process during product development. For a platform like Canvas, which serves a diverse student demographic, I found it frustrating to navigate without a mouse. I can't imagine how challenging it must be for users who depend on accessibility tools.
Accessibility should be a fundamental consideration during the defining and ideation stages for designers creating user experiences. I firmly believe that if we provide space for this group of users before launching new experiences, the overall outcome will be significantly improved for the entire user demographic.