Check how your site looks to your students

Most Blackboard sites will have been in use for a few weeks.  That makes now a good time to double-check the structure of your site and ensure that it is meeting your students’ needs in terms Edit Mode button imageof being easy to navigate.  You can see how your site looks to students by turning off Edit Mode (the toggle for this is in the upper right hand corner of Blackboard sites):

Once Edit Mode is off, you will see almost exactly what your students see. Try to look at your site from the perspective of a student and ask yourself a few questions:

  • Does the order of your menu make sense?
  • Are there any areas you are not using in the menu that you could hide?
  • Are there any menu items with similar names that you should consider renaming?
  • Is the Blackboard Help link for students at the bottom of your menu?

It’s now easy to reorder your menu by dragging and dropping the Where to click to reorder - use the keyboard accessible reordering insteadarrows to the left of a menu item (be sure to turn Edit Mode on again first).

If there are empty or unused areas, we recommend hiding them from students or deleting them. You can get to these options by clicking on the Where to click to edit a menu itemdouble-chevron symbol to the right of the menu item (again Edit Mode must be on to see this).

If you want any support with improving your site structure or menu, you can request this support inside the Bb-support tab in shuspace.

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