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WOMAN: Great design is something that we're always after.
We have visual designers, UI designers,
functional designers, instructional designers.
You start as big as possible.
I mean, blue sky, no limitations.
A lot of really good ideas...
NEAL: We huddle all the designers
into one room around the table,
and it's pretty much a brain-storming free-for-all.
Consolidate all of those pieces together...
WEEKS: We're designing for a global
set of users who are teaching and learning
in all different types of ways.
WOMAN: The big difference about this release is
how much user input we got before we got started.
WEEKS: We worked with over 600 students
over the past few years to observe
how they want to interact with one another
and what their expectations are.
What the students told us is,
they do not want to do their schoolwork in Facebook.
We are the social team.
We are really excited to be designing
the social aspect of Blackboard Learn.
We wanted to make sure that students know
that this is a brand-new thing, separate from your classes.
And we also wanted to make this look familiar
with other social media sites.
NEAL: When we talked to students and professors,
we really learned quite a lot.
They want their Facebook social life completely separate
from their Blackboard academic life.
I am so excited about this release.
Blackboard Profile is allowing them
to create their very own identity within the system
and letting it grow with you
as you go through your academic career.
MAN: When I think of design, I think
about the user, and you ask them what they need.
So a calendar is a good example of that.
It was really important for us to modernize the calendar.
It needs to be right there, accessible,
one click, edit, save, you're done.
Usability really matters when you're in crisis,
when you have to know something right now.
Not throw everything on a screen in a big news feed
and let me work my way through it.
I need it organized, so I can do what I need to do right now.
This is one of the designs we came up with
during the design process.
With Global Map, it's a quick access
to your spaces, your organizations,
and your messages and all of the tools that we're providing.
Surveys is something that's typically extra.
It's something else the university has to buy.
But with this release, everyone can have it.
WOMAN: We've got functional designers
and then visual designers,
I think I'm actually the functional designer,
and I would say Oz and I work together,
and he's the visual designer. And it's that combination
that really makes, I think,
the design work well.
It's simple. It's clean. And it's easy.
We don't even want them to notice the software.
We want them to be able to just do what they're trying to do.