User Interface Issues and Consistency --- Giving Up

David Sartory
David Sartory
Ninth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud K–12 Education Solutions™ General Discussions

We're going into our third year of using the new K12 after having been on Legacy forever. On a near daily basis I am disappointed in the lack of care being put into the design and experience of the most basic destinations in the K12 product. While weekly updates continue to add “features” that are trivial (a new column in a report, a new way to sort a table), major usability flaws make implementation brutal, and every new hiring year it repeats itself. If I'm wrong on any of these, I would genuinely appreciate a correction. Some examples:

  • The circular logic and complete disarray of the contact card/profile/student information pages is disturbing. Multiple paths to the same data leave users with similar but different views of critical and basic information (schedules, learning profiles, contact info)
  • No rhyme or reason to when you're looking at a “profile” or a “contact card”
  • In rosters and other “card” style views, the mouse responds as if a clickable area exists when it doesn't. Some icons are clickable (medical), others are not (Learning Profiles).
  • Learning Profiles still appear in at least three different ways:
    • on a roster card as a blue icon that cannot be clicked
    • in a gradebook as a blue icon that CAN be clicked
    • in an assignment as a letter L and something to the effect of “this student has a learning profile.” Seriously, Blackbaud? It's an icon… it would be a tiny fix to make this consistent
  • When turning in assignments and attaching a document, two LARGE buttons appear for Upload and Google Drive. Each responds as if it's a button. When using the Google Drive option, students must click on the actual tiny Drive icon to “push” the button.
  • filtering/dates/views still don't hold values when navigating the site
  • there is still no way for a teacher to see what turned in, ungraded assignments exist across classes.
  • There is still no notification (with a back link) option for when a student simply turns in work.
  • when creating a “links” section in a page/bulletin board, the system arbitrarily cuts off lists with 3+ items requiring students to click a “view all” button, even when no space constraints exist.
  • Assessments simply don't work and there appears to be no plan to fix them.
  • Blackbaud ID with SSO creates a loop half the time that brings the user right back to enter their email address again.
  • Preferred names are sometimes shown in quotes, sometimes in parentheses, and sometimes optional.

The weekly “look at the great stuff we did” emails are, frankly, insulting to those of us who spend our time trying to train users to work around poor design. I don't remember the last time I got an update that appeared to fix a genuine problem or really add new functionality - instead it's little cosmetic changes or “pat us on the back for including data in a table that should have been there in the first place.”

Until the BB dev team releases a public development roadmap, or bug tracker, or ticket system that can be searched, viewed, etc… we'll all end up in the same ridiculous loop asking support the same questions and getting the same “I'll need to look into this further and get back to you,” aka “In two weeks you'll get an email saying that what you wanted doesn't work.”

Browsing these forums, it's clear that even really popular ideas languish for long times before being addressed. Is anyone experiencing this differently than I am? Am I simply confused or missing the “real” features somewhere?

For two years I've been pushing back on teacher requests, explaining that a lot more goes into software development than is apparent from a quick glance, but starting this school year and seeing so little improvement to the system leaves me wondering why I'm defending it at all.

Comments

  • John Ronan
    John Ronan
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @David Sartory,

    I think my blood pressure just went 30% closer to normal after reading this.
    Thank you!

    Yes! I There are serious problems with this system. I kind see three main areas:

    • Deficiencies in functionality. [most prominent: the inability to create a robust, customizable “sky” list. ] But, as an EE user significant S/W Engineering experience, it astonishes me that, even after waiting a couple of years before switching from EE, and then suffering through 3 years since then, that we still are left far short.
    • Inconsistencies in UI. A couple examples [among many]
      • Why, e.g. is it I can do a wildcard search in some places but not in others?!? This should be available EVERYWHERE
      • Why do the advisory group management pages look so different from academic groups? [aren't they very similar?]
    • Quality
      • I'm really frustrated by things that get broken with the paltry weekly feature changes. E.g. this week, we discovered that the feature of naming a teacher assistant on a class is broken.

    I get the feeling that there are about 2-3 engineers working on this product, in about 4 locations who never talk to each other and, most of all, don't listen to domain experts [analysts] about how things should work. [if indeed there are any].

    And don't get me started on the fact that the prescribed way to report a bug is to enter an idea…

  • Jess Moxsky
    Jess Moxsky
    Kudos 5 Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant

    @David Sartory I wholeheartedly agree. I have been a long-time Blackbaud user (and former software instructor) and there are SO MANY things that are almost impossible to defend at this point. Having to explain to faculty why certain parts of the system look relatively user-friendly while others (any podium pages) are a nightmare. I created a whole other thread on Advanced Lists with a similar complaint, and have been told improvements are “in development” for some time now. At the end of the day, sunsetting EE while K12 lacks equivalent functionality was poor planning.

  • Susan Ott
    Susan Ott
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @David Sartory concerning the idea board - it is a perfect example of something little that could be fixed. When you go to page 2+ of ideas, why doesn't it take you back to the top of the page instead of leaving you at the bottom and having to scroll up? Same for if you select an idea to view that's near the bottom of the page, it looks like the page is blank until you scroll up to see that the idea only takes up a small portion of the entire page length. Either BB doesn't have the same view we do or it doesn't matter to them that the functionality that every other website has (even a site like Dollar Tree) isn't important enough to fix.

  • Joshua Blice
    Joshua Blice
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    @Brian Gray

    The text editing window is definitely one item that should have a resizable window. I don't know how many times I have deleted things by accident because the window is so small.

  • Eric Antanitus
    Eric Antanitus
    Ninth Anniversary Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @David Sartory re: The SSO loop. We had a few users with this issue, updating browser to latest version solved it.

  • Scott Yoshimura
    Scott Yoshimura
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1

    Many of the simple user interface items mentioned were the reason I created a user script that implements those changes client-side.

    The fact that I had to switch between Core/Academics/Enrollment Management and then search for a student again really bothered me, so that was one of the first things I did with the user script--add links to the top of profile pages for jumping between those views for that specific user. The tiny text editor boxes was another item that I addressed in the script.

    It's obviously limited to things that can be done client-side, but I've made dozens of improvements to the efficiency of things I do in this system. There's a generic version of the user script that can be installed by anyone and used in seconds…maybe this'll help restore some sanity while waiting for Blackbaud to implement changes on their end. Here's my original community thread:

    And the script info on Github:

    (Some of the script features are years old, so are probably outdated, as Blackbaud has made changes to the affected areas.)

  • Monica Yeung
    Monica Yeung
    Seventh Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1

    @David Sartory I am also in the same boat, we are 10 years in with blackbaud. We are only using 10-15% of all the features blackbaud provides. Only our staff uses blackbaud and they are not happy, can't imagine the feedback we will get having all our teacher uses it. We haven't use anything else is because it is just bad. Somethings are so simple and they still couldn't fix it. For example, we want to collect points for student. Max is 10 points. After everything is setup. I see a drop down of 0, 1, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9. Which is not acceptable to any teachers to see. When I reach out to support, they say they will escalate it, which mean they will get back to you in six months. I won't brother to go in to all the work around we have to do…….

  • Megan Day
    Megan Day
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @David Sartory Very well articulated. I've been out on maternity leave and just stumbled on this thread from September. We've been in the “new” LMS for 6+ years. When we made the switch, we were coming from teachers using simple Google Sites for posting assignment information and EE. We were thrilled at all the “bells and whistles” that were demoed to us but it wasn't until we had fully committed that we realized how difficult it was to use.

    80% of my work is assisting teachers with (what we call) onCampus. I spent a good portion of our first year creating help documentation for our teachers on things like, “When I add an assignment, what do all the settings mean?” because documentation for teachers simply doesn't exist. Whenever a new update comes out I either update or create a new document or video on the new feature but have to include qualifiers such as “This is what SHOULD be happening, but it doesn't work.” I then have to include all the various workarounds.

    There are way too many ways that Blackbaud communicates with its customers. You have to attend events to learn about upcoming features. To know about those events, you have to be subscribed to the right forum, community thread, blog, who knows anymore. When I expressed frustration to our Customer Success Manager that I could never find the information I was looking for, she sent me an email about all the various ways that Blackbaud communicates and proved my point. She also encouraged me to visit the K12 Hub more often because “I think we are trending toward posting information there.” ?

    Using Blackbaud LMS during the pandemic was a nightmare because of inconsistencies between the teacher and student views (due dates/times, how to view grades/comments/assessment results, teachers not knowing what a student sees).

    I maintain a Google Doc with a list of ideas from the Ideas that our faculty care about and keep them updated when an idea changes status (only two were updated during my four month leave).The only big update that happened during my leave was the assignment annotation tools and they're disappointing. Most of my teachers will continue utilizing Google Doc/Google Assignment ways of giving feedback.

    While I think our development office is married to Blackbaud, our academic team is having serious conversations about making the jump to a different LMS. Part of this process is creating a running list of “pain points” that we're experiencing and this thread definitely gave me a jump start on my list.

  • Bryna Gleich
    Bryna Gleich Blackbaud Employee
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @Megan Day:
    80% of my work is assisting teachers with (what we call) onCampus. I spent a good portion of our first year creating help documentation for our teachers on things like, “When I add an assignment, what do all the settings mean?” because documentation for teachers simply doesn't exist

    Have you seen the tutorials, videos, and faculty resources posted at:

    Additionally, all the content on this help center is available to anyone; they don't even need to be logged with a BBID to access it. Some of this information also appears in the KB and in the product's embedded help (we copy it to multiple locations). The “Academics” and “Extracurricular” tabs at the top (and Search) sometimes have information that teachers also find valuable; it's not just for admins. If you find something in this site that you want to share with teachers or to link to your school's documentation, you can share it from here, just copy the URL address.

    For best results if you Search, use keywords ("add assignment") instead of full sentences (not "How do I add an assignment to my Math class?" ). Make sure your internet browser has spell check enabled. Use generic teams and dates (current year, athletic team, grade level, etc.) instead of school specific ones (not: 2022-2023, Basketball team, freshmen, etc.)

    At the bottom of the help topics, you can submit anonymous feedback that our tech writers (Strategic Content Design team) review as we work to update and improve the documentation for users. Since it is anonymous, we don't reply directly, but we do read and use the feedback.

  • David Sartory
    David Sartory
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Bryna Gleich I think it's safe to assume that anyone who ended up here figured out how to find the help section first and found it lacking. It's not that the content isn't there… For example, taking your advice, I searched for “add assignment”… guess what's not in the results? Sure, if you go into “Assignments Overview” you can then find “Add Assignment" in there (no idea why that didn't come up in the search) but this is not the kind of thing basic users do, and expecting them to be search pros is unrealistic. Your search engine should remove words like “how do I" and small articles of speech, not actually scan your database for them. For better or worse, people have been trained on search engines and they're used to asking questions like that.

    038ee13262b59938664a925163752924-huge-im

    Speaking again to the larger problem, your quote says it all:

    “Some of this information also appears in the KB and in the product's embedded help (we copy it to multiple locations). The “Academics” and “Extracurricular” tabs at the top (and Search) sometimes have information that teachers also find valuable”

    Some of it is copied, some isn't, some is in a different place, maybe, sometimes. Even Blackbaud's recent change for the “What's New” content is bizarre… you send an email, telling people that you made a post in the community with the info, but then the content is actually in the BLOG (no idea why) instead of just sending it to people in the first place.

    And again, you suggest writing in to one place or another… but the fact remains (and no one will answer to it) that the PRIMARY location for suggesting, the Ideas forum, is loaded with proof of inaction on BB's part. Again - the TOP suggestion is 7 years old and has no answer from BB. What's the point of adding more to that system?


  • Megan Day
    Megan Day
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @David Sartory again, brilliantly articulated.

    @Bryna Gleich I find your response a bit insulting. I know how to use a search engine. However, since you took the time to respond, I'll follow your advice to show another example of how lacking the resources are for teachers and how poorly organized. The “Teacher Resources” link you shared isn't helpful. I've yet to find a single file/result/page/I don't know what these even are…. useful.

    For example, the way the LMS handles extra credit has always been confusing for our faculty. Regularly I have teachers coming to me asking why their extra credit assignment isn't calculating in the grade book.

    If a teacher follows your “best practices” and searches “extra credit”, NONE of the results explain how extra credit assignments are calculated within assignment types but the results do include “Sports and Teams”. (Why? Who knows…) I even took the time to go through the first 4 search results.

    The first, “Working with Gradebooks” does mention examples of extra credit. It's under Gradebook settings > Grade calculation > Pick a calculation method > Calculation Example. However, just because the words “extra credit” are use, it doesn't answer the teacher's question.

    The second “Individual Gradebook Setup” has the same regurgitated text as the first result.

    The third “Assignments”, mentions extra credit but simply says “Select if the assignment should be extra credit”. It also includes a “tip” about extra credit not negatively impacting a student's grade. (That's not a tip. It's what extra credit means.)

    The fourth “Gradebook calculations” is again the same regurgitated text from the first two search results.

    In summary, it is not possible for the teacher to find the information they're looking for in “Teacher Resources”. However, if a teacher searches “extra credit” in the Blackbaud Knowledgebase the first search result is ‘How does Extra Credit calculate in the grade book?" (Interesting that knowledgebase articles are titled as questions but you’ve told me to “not search full sentences”.) This knowledgebase article mentions “Additionally, the calculation follows the calculation method the teacher is using and there must be at least 1 non-extra credit assignment graded in the assignment category for the marking period.” NOW we're getting somewhere! However, I'd still argue that this doesn't adequately answer the question for the teacher. It's in Blackbaud speak and I can definitely see some of my teachers not understanding what that means.

    If we open the 4th search result in the knowledgebase (if searching without filtering by product), we finally find what we've been looking for and the answer is written in a way that teachers can understand. This is the ONLY Blackbaud created resource that I give to our teachers. I send this to them when they're frustrated and ask “How was I supposed to know that the extra credit presentation my students completed wouldn't calculate because I used the “Presentation” assignment type and I don't and won't use that assignment type for anything else?!?" (I'm paraphrasing but I answer this question every year, multiple times).

    Another place I've been sent to before “Faculty Resources”. Not helpful.

    Lastly, I tried to look for the K12 hub that the previous rep mentioned but it looks like it doesn't even exist anymore or maybe was renamed? The link was k12hub.blackbaud.com but now redirects.

    I'd love to know if you have any teachers on your Strategic Content Design Team. If the resources are for teachers, they should be written by teachers.

  • Bryna Gleich
    Bryna Gleich Blackbaud Employee
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    Hi @David Sartory,

    Thank you for the specific feedback. I currently don't normally work on assignments. (I did in the past though.) I used assignments as an example because I thought it would be a more universal example than my current, normal area. Please forgive me. I should have tested the specific example before mentioning it.

    Having said that, there is action I can and will take immediately to try to improve this specific example. I'll update the meta data properties for the Assignments overview topic. I think that should improve this specific search result. You should see this change go live with next week's release (possibly sooner).

    I think we do have some “stop words” that are automatically ignored/removed from search (including “a, an, the,” and some others). Users are unique and creative, so we can't account for all cases. I would hate to ignore every “how” and end up accidentally ignoring “slideshow” (as a generic, hypothetical example).

    We have some synonyms in effect for search too ("remove" and “delete,” for example).

    The point I'd hoped to make was: For best search results, use keywords, do not use full sentences, use spell check, and use generic instead of specifics. It's not Google.

    --

    For What's New, many clients have multiple BB solutions. Previously, some solutions sent emails, others posted to the blog, etc. We're trying to make things standardized and consistent.

    If we were to rely only on email, then not everyone gets the message, as not all users are on the email distribution list.

    The community has a wide reach and the blog is part of the community. With the user community blog, more users have an opportunity to get the What's New message. Plus, it encourages users to join the community and to follow the blog, so they can interact with peers and get other tips and tricks.

    If you want to opt-in to an email, you can subscribe to the community and to its blogs.

    Meanwhile, I'll make note of your feedback.

    --

    Regarding the top idea, as a former teacher (both virtual and brick & mortar), I understand the reason for that request and empathize. The system I taught with (not a BB solution) didn't enable impersonation for teachers to see all student/parent views either. I know our workaround was to login as “demo” users instead. It wasn't ideal, but that's what we did when I taught.

    I know it is frustrating to see the top idea currently marked “under consideration” instead of “planned/shipped/implemented.” In the comments section of the top idea, I recognize the names of some of my BB coworkers who have entered replies along the way, not just 7 years ago. I also know that idea is not simple, it is still discussed, it is still investigated, it is not forgotten, and I believe new things are built/enhanced with that idea in mind (such as the student preview for assignments).

    As for future details of that or any other idea, it's not my place to comment more. That's a product manager area.

    ----

    Hi @Megan Day,

    No insult was intended. I'm sorry it came across that way.

    I see some of the terms people use when they search.

    I have seen multiple instances of people who search for “Contest type" when they meant “Content type,” or entered multiple sentences including telling me the names of students, or wrote “call me!” in the feedback, yet left no email address nor phone number. All normal, honest, understandable mistakes.

    I'm glad you understand search. Not all do.

    As for “extra credit” mysteriously returning “sports" in search results, I see that's because it's in “EXTRAcurricular" and thus it's hitting a “partial word match.” Mystery solved. Meanwhile, I'll make note and see what I can do improve that one, even though it is not my normal area. Thank you for the examples.

    --

    Articles native to the KB do often start with “how." The KB is written by support and runs on a different platform, with a different search engine, than the in product help and resource center. Content I work on is copied to the KB, but is not native to the KB. I am not in the support department.

    Likewise k12hub.blackbaud.com was more marketing department, I think. I know some content I worked on was linked there, but again, not native to it.

    I wish I could make them all the same system. At this time, however, they aren't.

    Different departments have different responsibilities and needs, thus different tools to best meet those needs. For example, I need a tool that has variables and conditions, advanced source and version control, publishes to multiple formats and locations, helps me track how content is linked and interconnected, make bulk changes rapidly, interacts well with translation services, etc. My spouse jokingly calls it “object oriented.” He sends his computer science interns my way sometimes and I talk with them about things like branching, merging, and git.

    --

    As for teachers on the strategic design team, I was a teacher (both virtual and brick & mortar) and I am not the only one. We also have former teachers in UX design, PM, support, and more. They are not all former teachers, but some are. At least one member of SCD is also a current teacher.

    --

    I know things are not perfect, but we are listening and working on improvements.

    Thank you again for the documentation and search feedback. I will do my best. I can't make it Google, but I can listen and help.

    The area of documentation I currently, normally work on is Core (including roles and tasks). We have improvements in the works there. I hope to show some soon.

    I also work on a BB solution called CSRconnect, which is part of YourCause.

    Best wishes,

    Bryna Gleich (Technical Writer)

    PS. I heard an interesting podcast episode recently that goes into search. It's episode 507 of “99% invisible" hosted by Roman Mars. If search interests you too, consider checking it out.

  • Brian Gray
    Brian Gray Community All-Star
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    I posted a list of pages that have an edit dialog that should be resizable to an Idea Bank entry from more than a year ago.

    More votes might help…

  • Megan Day
    Megan Day
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @Bryna Gleich Thank you for the transparency of Blackbaud's inner workings. I had suspected that part of the reason we have been so unhappy is because of how Blackbaud is structured. It's a big company with lots of “solutions”. Some of your customers have lots of pieces and some might only have one piece. Unfortunately, this still means your customers can't easily find what they're looking for. Since it seems like most of my complains have to deal with an area of the system you're not deeply involved with, I'll leave it there.

    Looking forward to improvements on the documentation for roles and tasks you mentioned. Thats a huge headache for us as well.

    @Brian Gray Thank you for taking the time to document all of the areas that have tiny edit dialog windows. Hoping some progress will be made there soon!


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