Improving Navigation and Accessibility in Canvas

During our time as students at the University of Liverpool, we noticed a problem with how module content was accessed in our department: inaccessible, poorly designed Canvas modules leading to student confusion and frustration. As Student-Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) members in the Department of Computer Science, we volunteered our time to raise student issues to academic staff and these often involved Canvas complaints. We saw first-hand the impacts of a rushed Canvas course and wanted to help improve them for future cohorts.

Now, as recent graduates under our tech and EDI start-up, Jamescape, we received some funding from the University of Liverpool Alumni & Friends Fund to design and deliver Pimp My Canvas - an interactive workshop that gives academics the knowledge to design great Canvas courses from the student perspective.

Pimp My Canvas, a fun play on MTV’s Pimp My Ride, is an interactive workshop for academic staff that explains best practice for Canvas courses in terms of accessibility, content, navigation and layout. The workshop explains why each aspect is important, particularly from a student perspective, and offers practical guidance on how to implement best practice, along with easy checks that can be carried out to assess the quality of existing courses. The competitive workshop activity divides the group into teams who look through an intentionally poorly-designed Canvas course and use a buzzer to call out the bad practice for a point. This was a fun way to get staff engaged in the session, and was noted as the highlight amongst attendees.

We’ve been unable to witness any long term impact from Pimp My Canvas due to us being graduates, however, from the session feedback the academics were very positive and noted that they left with a lot of student insight that they wouldn’t consider previously when designing their Canvas courses. Improving academic Canvas courses is an easy win for staff - increased student satisfaction due to easy access of module content, in addition to reduced student enquiries and confusion.

Due to the nature of being an interactive workshop, you can only deliver it to a limited number of people at a time. Although we delivered the session in person, we designed it with remote or hybrid delivery in mind. It should also be noted that delivery is most effective in the timeframe before each academic semester, before academics create their Canvas courses.

Inclusivity

One of the key aspects of the Pimp My Canvas content was accessibility, covering topics like captions, image alt text, navigation links, and colour contrast. Ensuring good accessibility design is critical to providing an equitable learning experience for disabled students who may have a range of access needs.

Pimp My Canvas could be delivered in any University of Liverpool department and would improve their students’ experience.

We would recommend working with SSLC student members in your department to check if there are any particular pain points for academic modules, as some departments use different Canvas features. It would be ideal to have that student input, and potentially have a student help deliver the session, as that perspective is key to the session’s value.

Please get in touch and we can share our Pimp My Canvas slides for your delivery, or our Jamescape team can provide delivery for a small fee: hello@jamescape.net.