Here's a little Canvas challenge I used to give myself back when I was a Canvas admin. I’d open a course I'd never seen before, give myself 10 seconds, and see if I could figure out:
- Where am I?
- What am I supposed to do?
- Where do I go next?
- What information matters most?
If the answer to those was "not really," I knew it wasn't necessarily a teaching problem but usually it’s a design problem.
Students don't read Canvas. They scan it.
Think about how you navigate websites every day. You don't typically read every single word on a homepage before deciding what to click. You scan for headings, buttons, images, and visual cues that tell you where to go. Our students do the exact same thing in Canvas, which is why visual hierarchy matters so much. I mean you only look at a Facebook post for 2.37 seconds before moving on.
A page can have all the right information and still create unnecessary friction if everything looks equally important. Compare these two approaches:
The core information is exactly the same. But the second version actually gives students a visual roadmap.
Give students a "next step"
One of my favorite Canvas design questions is simply: What do I want the student to do next?
If a student finishes reading a page, is it obvious what happens next? If they land on the homepage, can they quickly find the current module? If there are five links on the page, is it clear which one actually matters?
This is where small design choices do the heavy lifting:
- Use headings to break up content.
- Use consistent visual patterns for recurring activities.
- Give important actions visual emphasis.
- Don't make every element compete for attention.
You don't need to make your course flashy. You just need to make it predictable.
Consistency is your friend
Try opening three pages in one of your current courses. Do they feel like they belong to the same class?
If every page uses different colors, layouts, buttons, and formatting, students have to spend mental energy figuring out the interface instead of focusing on the actual learning. That's a big reason why I'm a strong advocate for design systems in Canvas. A teacher shouldn't have to reinvent how a "Start Here" section looks every time they create a page. A district doesn't need 100 different versions of a button. And an instructional designer definitely shouldn't have to fix the exact same formatting issue across 75 different courses.
This is where design tools can help
Good design principles are one thing, but making them easy for teachers to use consistently is another.
That's where tools like DesignPLUS can add real value. Having templates, content blocks, and reusable styles gives educators a framework for creating visually consistent courses without requiring them to become HTML/CSS experts. The goal isn't to make every Canvas course look identical. The goal is just to make good design easier to achieve. Teachers should always have room to make their courses their own—they just shouldn't have to start from a completely blank page every time.
Try the 10-second test
Consider this challenge for next week: Pick one Canvas course and look at it like a student seeing it for the very first time.
Give yourself 10 seconds. Where am I? What matters most? What do I do next?
If those answers aren't obvious, don't panic and redesign the entire course. Just start with one page. Improve the navigation, simplify the choices, and create a clear next step. Sometimes a tiny design change can remove a surprisingly huge barrier for your students.
Your Turn 👇
What's one Canvas design choice you've made that helped students know where to go or what to do next? I'd love to hear what's working in your courses and institutions.
