He was there to study accounting, not remark on my course design. However halfway by means of a Zoom name within the fall of 2025, certainly one of my on-line grownup learners paused and began speaking about my Canvas homepage, how the buttons labored, how all the pieces related. He had taken screenshots and despatched them to a former professor at one other college. He needed to point out somebody what a course may appear to be.
That second clarified one thing I had been working in the direction of for just a few years and it lastly got here collectively: constructing a deliberate visible model for every of my programs. Not a emblem within the advertising and marketing sense, however a cohesive design id that provides college students a constant, recognizable expertise from the second they open a Canvas web page, one that isn’t solely intentional {and professional}, however accessible to all learners from the beginning.
The place the Concept Got here From
The spark for my first branded course got here from an unlikely place: the Affiliation of Licensed Fraud Examiners (ACFE) World Convention. I had been attending for years, and the convention design caught my eye. The web site, the supplies, the visible language all labored collectively to speak professionalism and credibility earlier than a single session started. I got here again to my course and checked out it with totally different eyes. It was useful, sure. But it surely didn’t talk something about what sort of expertise college students have been strolling into. I made a decision to alter that.
I additionally had a bonus most instructors don’t: my daughter is a skilled graphic designer and he or she occurs to deal with designing for accessibility. I’m not too proud to ask for assist, and the design of my programs is best due to that collaboration. She created a shade sheet and font suggestions, helped me troubleshoot my HTML coding, and launched me to design ideas I had by no means thought-about. She defined the Z-pattern, the way in which a reader’s eye naturally strikes throughout a web page, and confirmed me the place to position components for essentially the most visible influence. She additionally pushed me towards sure shade palettes based mostly on shade idea, a small selection that provides a course a extra welcoming really feel.
The end result was a course with daring, vivid colours and a banner that tells the story of accounting: information, group, cash, and studies. It doesn’t appear to be a default Canvas web page. It seems prefer it tells a narrative with out phrases. (See Determine 1)
Determine 1
Three Programs, Three Identities
Every course I train has its personal design origin story, and they’re all totally different.
For ACCT 2302, Rules of Managerial Accounting, I needed a producing really feel. Managerial accounting lives on this planet of manufacturing, price, and course of, and I needed the course to replicate that. We landed on a gear-based banner and a softer shade palette, a distinct visible register than the daring power of economic accounting. The homepage structure can be structured in a different way, a reminder that you could make intentional selections to tell apart one course from one other slightly than defaulting to a template. (See Determine 2)
Determine 2
For ACNT 2311, Managerial Accounting, I handed the creative result in my daughter solely and requested for one thing refined and polished. She constructed the colour palette from {a photograph} she had taken herself, then designed the banner and made typography suggestions. This course has a synchronous lecture element which wanted to be separate from the web workplace hours hyperlink. (See Determine 3)
Determine 3
What all three programs share is structural consistency beneath the visible variations. College students transferring between my programs will discover the identical organizational logic, the identical navigation patterns, the similar underlying structure. The model of every course is distinct, however the expertise of being in certainly one of my programs is recognizable.
Why This Issues Past Making It Fairly
Intentional course design is about entry. When a pupil opens a course web page and the structure is constant, the visible hierarchy is evident, and the typography is readable, they spend much less psychological power orienting themselves and extra psychological power on the content material. That isn’t a small factor for an grownup learner managing a job and a household and logging in at ten o’clock at evening or a neurodivergent pupil. Good design removes limitations earlier than the primary task hundreds.
Common design for Studying asks us to anticipate the total vary of learners in our programs and construct for them from the beginning slightly than accommodating them after the actual fact. Visible design is one place the place that precept is instantly actionable. For instance, font selection impacts readability for dyslexic learners, and shade distinction issues for college kids with low imaginative and prescient. A transparent, predictable structure reduces cognitive load for college kids with consideration or processing variations. These will not be superior accessibility interventions. They’re fundamental design selections that profit each pupil within the course.
There may be additionally one thing to be mentioned for the surroundings that considerate design creates. Years of attending varied business conferences taught me what it feels prefer to stroll into an expert setting designed with function. I needed my college students to really feel that very same factor, that they’re someplace critical, someplace that respects their time and their ambitions.
The place to Begin if You Are Not a Designer
You do not want a daughter with a graphic design diploma. However you do want to start out someplace, and essentially the most helpful first query is just: what does this course really feel like? Not what does it cowl, however what’s the expertise of being in it? From that query, a theme usually follows naturally. A nursing ethics course may need a really totally different visible character than an information analytics course, and naming that distinction is the start of a design id.
A number of sensible steps to get you began:
- Let the content material counsel the palette. Suppose about the world your self-discipline lives in and let that information your visible selections. The subject material already has a visible language; your job is to seek out it.
- Borrow from contexts you already belief. Have a look at conferences, skilled organizations, or publications in your subject and take note of how they current themselves. These supplies gave me a visible reference level I may adapt slightly than invent, and they’re going to do the identical for you.
- Take into consideration construction individually from model. The colours and banners are the character; the navigation and organizational logic are the bones. Get the bones proper first, then gown them.
- Construct for your hardest-to-reach pupil. Ask your self whether or not your font is readable, your shade distinction is adequate, and your structure is predictable sufficient for somebody navigating the course at 2 am as a result of we now have all obtained these early morning emails! If the reply is sure, the design is working for everybody.
And when you’ve got entry to experience, whether or not a colleague in graphic design, an tutorial designer, or somebody in your personal household with an eye fixed for this work, don’t be too proud to ask for it. The perfect design selections I’ve made got here from conversations with somebody who thinks about visible communication professionally. These conversations modified how I see my very own programs. A number of free instruments price bookmarking as you get began:
Chat GPT- Customized GPTs for HTML and Canvas:
Make Your Course a Model
Each course communicates one thing visually. Course branding shouldn’t be ornament. It’s a method to deliver character, professionalism, and function into the house the place studying occurs and to guarantee that house is constructed for everybody who walks into it.
Jennifer Coon, CIA, CFE, is a Professor of Accounting at Tyler Junior Faculty, the place she was named the 2025 Endowed Chair for Educating Excellence, and an adjunct accounting teacher at Collin Faculty. She brings the lenses of a Licensed Inner Auditor and Licensed Fraud Examiner into her principles-level programs and writes about course design, gamification, and practitioner id within the accounting classroom.
design-ideas/designing-a-course-students-want-to-screenshot/”>Supply hyperlink
