Easy ways to make your Blackboard site more user-friendly

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Easy ways to make your Blackboard site more
user-friendly

• Matching information to styles of learning

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Points to consider

• What does it mean to be more user-friendly?
• Blackboard features
• Material for use on Blackboard
• Text read back software
• Bandwidth for home downloads

Reasonable adjustments Senda legislation
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User friendly ?

• Awareness of how differently people learn
• Looking for the most simple way to explain what
  you are doingwithout being patronising!
• Putting yourself in the users head and check
  what your site looks like frequently from their
  point of view

What does this mean in practice?
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Blackboard features

• Buttons
• Font colour for headlining information
• Instructions for accessing information

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Back!
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Make the instructions for opening the page as
clear as you can
Over explain what you are doing in each section
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Assessment on Blackboard can be a minefield.
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Designing material
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Print style

• This is Times New Roman. It is not recommended
  for ease of reading because of all the extra
  bits it has on it.
• This is Comic Sans, which is a very popular font.
  It is smooth and easy to read, though some
  people find it too informal.
• Arial, this font, is the college house style
  font. It is also plain and easy to read.
• This is Tahoma.
• This is Verdana.

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Summary

• Keep it simple
• Keep the individual user in mind and check your
  site frequently for clarity
• Vary what you do if you have the time
• Remember that some will be using Blackboard with
  text read back software and find out what that
  means in design and usage terms
• Some things are not better if they are on a
  computer or Blackboard!

Ellen Lessner, Abingdon and Witney
College Ellen.lessner_at_abingdon-witney.ac.uk