Follow up: Thank you to everyone providing feedback on the changes. You can send them to me directly at ajhyman(at)utoronto.dot.ca  (sorry for writing it out this way; trying to avoid blog bots from scraping my address).

Please keep in mind that the changes were made to the default. You can continue to click the Personalize Page button on the Portal to, well, personalize your experience to some extent. You can also look for additional modules (the Portal’s equivalent of “apps”) with the Add Modules button as well.

Meanwhile – enjoy this “portal colour inspiration video” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco

LOL
Thanks,   Avi

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Just a quick update on a little update 🙂

When I took on my current role last year, I made a to-do list, and on that list was a cosmetic cleanup of the Learning Portal. The colour pallet and overall design was a little dated (having been designed six years ago).

So, with a little expert help, we put our minds to this over the summer, with the goal of refreshing the look for the start of the school year. As it turns out, the LMS style sheets are a little more complicated than we hoped, and changing a colour on one element often had the effect of changing it on some other, unexpected, element. Who would have guessed? 😉

However, it’s been tested and checked, and since we will have the system down for some other, more important upgrades Friday night, we decided now was a good time to hit the refresh button.

So, when the Learning Portal comes back on Friday night, you will see a different colour scheme. We call it “Portal Moderne” 🙂  Of course, we can never fulfill everyone’s sense of aesthetic, but we had good input and the outcome was a look we feel (hope) is more contemporary and more pleasing to the eye. Feedback is welcome, of course (but it’s not a guarantee that we will change it 😀 ).

One final point: this is a purely cosmetic change. It does not affect functionality. The system and tools will still work the way they have been.

Thanks,
Avi