Blackboard Mobile Responsive Theme - Frequently Asked Questions

The new mobile-responsive theme does not allow you to customize colors for course menus, for consistency of the experience between Blackboard in the browser compared with using the Blackboard mobile app for students. Blackboard has conducted extensive user research with students about their experience using Blackboard, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, and advanced UX methodologies. A major theme of this research is that students have a better experience with consistency across their courses over custom branding of courses, particularly the use of bright or jarring colors.

In addition, with Blackboard's commitment to accessibility, they want to ensure that students with visual impairments are not at a disadvantage due to the color choices made for the course menu. The option to select course menu colors also provided the opportunity for choosing colors with insufficient contrast to be accessible to all students, including those who have low vision or are color blind. The new, standardized color scheme offers a positive experience for all students.

The mobile-responsive theme does use more contemporary icons which are visually different from the former system icons. The icons can be removed entirely if preferred by enabling text-only view for the content folder as well.

Both the Course Menu and Content Areas include simple button controls for reordering items, which can be used instead of the drag-and-drop method. While designed for assistive technologies, the "Keyboard Accessible Reordering" controls are useful for everyone. They can be found by clicking on the up and down arrow icon, either above the Course Menu, or on the right hand side of the bar containing the standard Content Area controls (such as the "Build Content" button) as seen in the screenshot below. From the panel that pops up, select the item you wish to move, then click on the small up or down arrow buttons to move the item to the desired place in the list. When done, click the Submit button.