You may have noticed that we’ve redesigned one of the key parts of CAS Shield: the spreadsheet view.
This introduces our new design language to the platform that we’ve been developing over the last few months and have already rolled out on our website.
Why are we doing this?
One of the fundamental reasons for introducing our new design language was an increased commitment to accessibility. This is driven by our determination to give as many people as possible the best opportunity to enjoy using our products.
Our previous interface used colours and contrast ratios that were sometimes difficult to read. Sometimes colour alone was used to convey meaning, and it wasn’t always obvious what that meaning was meant to be.
It’s not just the colours
The new look spreadsheet view introduces a raft of usability enhancements that will hopefully deliver big wins to our users’ day-to-day tasks. Some of these improvements are:
- The most useful data about the student, as well as commonly used features like tags, is now consolidated and always shown so that they don't require any sideways scrolling (or zooming out 🙈) to see.
- We have redesigned the rows to show significantly more information about a student at a glance, without you needing to open the record or hover over some hidden text.
- The filters have been totally redesigned too, making them more discoverable and easier to use, as well as easily see when a view is being filtered.
- Indicators for new messages, documents and your team’s activity have been made more prominent and easier to understand.
- More recently, we have made a change to how students are loaded so that the system isn’t trying to load everything at the same time, which often resulted in a sluggish feeling UI
What’s next?
Early feedback on the new spreadsheet view has been positive. If you’ve already tried the new look, we’d love to hear what you think.
However, there is always more we can do to improve usability. One interesting criticism we have heard is that the new colours are difficult to read for dyslexic users, something which we’ve been able to address in future designs after engaging with the feedback.
This is just one example of how feedback from our users can have a big impact on the product, and we’ll continue to consult with you going forward as we develop CAS Shield.
You can try the new view today by using the option at the top of the page. Once in the new view, you can leave us feedback using this menu too. We’d love to hear from you!
