Forum Discussion
New Matching lay-out
Last week we received the updated lay-out of the matching knowledge check. The moment I discovered it was a bit unlucky (during a presentation, got me a bit confused) but today I had some time to look into it.
The changelog as following on the articulate website:
Enhanced: Matching knowledge check blocks have been upgraded with intuitive navigation, full keyboard support, and comprehensive screen reader integration.
Now, I think it's great that Articulate is improving it's software's accessibility, however, I don't see anything intuitive about the new design. A lot of new things have been added which for me only make the assignment more confusing. On the left side the hamburger icon and number suggest some sort of clickability, which is not there. The drop downs on the right give the assignment a new layer of intractability which only wouldn't want for the student. Overall the lay-out is a lot less clean and drains focus away from the content towards the design.
Maybe a simple solution would be to add a slider which let's us choose between this lay-out and the previous one (or this one without the rings and bells).
That's just my opinion, I was wondering what other think of the new lay-out!
60 Replies
Hi LesaMoore-b1f22, AidanGarvey-4f7, tjniko, TonyGomez, and Thom392,
Thank you for your feedback on this issue. We truly appreciate it, and I shared all of your comments with our engineering team.
While I can’t provide a timeline for the fix, I can confirm that our product engineers are actively working on a resolution.
We’ll keep you updated with any significant developments!
This change definitely makes matching more confusing for the user. The amount of work to hunt down all the matching instances in all of our courses along with the associated rework is fairly massive for our team. I am hopeful we can revert back to the precious version and possibly add this version as some kind of option.
Hi everyone,
Thanks for your feedback on the updated layout of the Matching Knowledge Check block in Rise 360.
We understand that the new numbered dropdown has raised some concerns, and I want to assure you that our product team is aware of the issue and all of the feedback we’ve received about this feature.
Our goal is to provide an experience that’s both fully accessible and user-friendly. We’ll share any updates as they become available.
In the meantime, please feel free to continue sharing your thoughts. We’re always listening!
Thanks, Eric - appreciate your response and look forward to hearing a workable solution for your customers.
I want to stress that, for our team, this issue goes beyond mere “concerns”. The recent change has required us to spend real time (and therefore money) reworking existing content. This includes coordinating approvals with SMEs and revisiting materials we had already considered final.
What’s more troubling, and should be of concern to Articulate, is the potential erosion of customer confidence in the dependability and reliability of your products. Are there any other upcoming changes like this we should be aware of?
I've worked with accessibility for many years, and I will always champion Articulate's road to baking in accessibility. However, good accessibility practices/enhancements should benefit "all users" — not just those with specific needs.
I completely agree. I'm very surprised this change can't be rolled back until a workable solution is ready just like any other update applied with negative effects. This should be a much higher priority. As shown by all the comments, the impact is more than just aesthetic. The biggest issue for me is that it was applied retroactively to completed content. This content, in many cases, would not have been approved. The only time unapproved changes are implemented is to correct mistakes (typos, broken links etc. EricSantos
We can't wait any longer. The customer complaints are stacking up, and we are re-authoring every quiz with this question type.
Thanks for replying Eric, looking forward to hearing more about an estimated release date for this new layout.
Hi - is there a fix for this issue yet? Dreadfully slow response from the Articulate team here. You've changed a core feature of Rise, which has an impact on content people have already created and spent time working on. This has real fallout on our learning teams deliverables (no SME has approved us to roll this out to a live environment, everyone finds it confusing).
Fully agree!
This is not a minor inconvenience. Course rollouts are being delayed, and many people are actively avoiding this interaction type because of how broken it feels in practice. We are left without clear communication or a concrete plan to resolve the problem.
This issue is affecting real projects and real timelines. It's time for a proper update and a serious effort to restore functionality. articulate
Although I don't think this format is an entirely bad enhancement, I have run into some problems while designing course quizzes and it brings much confusion to our users. In specific, we use a ton of matching questions where "first choice, second choice" language is being used and we require it to match to a phrase. However, it displays like: "4 first choice, 1 second choice" and it’s a huge misstep. Any word on if this feature will be removed or updated as an "opt out" function? Thanks!
Could someone from Articulate please respond with an update on this issue that a lot of people are having with the confusion of the matching activity? It's been three months since the first issue was raised here. This confusion is really frustrating and I can no longer use this matching activity now, without an alternative option. articulate please reply.
Hi AoifeMcLough356!
Thanks for checking in on this!
We understand some Rise authors would like the option to switch off the accessibility enhancement that was recently added to Matching Knowledge Check Blocks. I've included your voice in the feature request we are tracking!
We'll be sure to notify you if this feature makes it to our product roadmap.
Hi Steven, you are referring to this as a "feature", though please read just a few of the many comments here; this is an issue that needs to be solved a.s.a.p., not a "feature" that can be added to the "feature requests" for many months... Learners are struggling and find it confusing! The basic functionality was in place and running smoothly. The "enhancement" is causing issues. I had opened a Support case months ago for this issue and the reply was that this "improvement request" will be added to the "feature requests". I would highly recommend to listen to your customers and solve the issues that are occurring as a result of "enhancements" made by Articulate, thanks in advance!
Can this please be an option to turn on or off? This is creating widespread confusion and frustration. Sooner rather than later would be hugely appreciated.
If you have access to modify the course CSS (via post-publishing editing, or via Mighty extension) you can at least twiddle the appearance to remove/hide the numbers. Something like
.matching-item-movable__drag-lines svg { width: 17px; } .matching-item-movable__text { --match-item-text-border: none; } .matching-item-movable__index { text-indent: -9999px; --movable-item-index-size: 0; } .matching-item-immobile-select { display: none; }Thanks so much for your response Tim. Its been a long long time since I played with "Markup", and I realised my talents should be focused elsewhere. I will leave this to the experts I'm afraid. Thanks Again.
I feel like this "enhanced" version of the matching knowledge check activity hasn't been tested with many users, or for various types of content. Also, I have a lot of trouble seeing how it can be considered intuitive to allow matching by either dragging or using the drop-down.
The numbered boxes on the left can be very confusing. Let's say the activity is to put steps in order, "Step 1" would be assignated to a number at random. To me, that seems only confusing, and not intuitive at all for the user.
Giving no context, I made a test with a few people around me, and all of them choosed to match elements by dragging them. None of them used the drop-downs first, but they wondered or looked confused about what the numbers were there for. After having matched the elements by dragging, some clicked on the drop-downs in confusion, wondering if another action was needed before clicking Submit.
I guess that the drop-downs are more about accessibility than being intuitive, but then why is it not an option we can check/uncheck? Accessibility features are relevant, but I expect them to be optional. I much prefer being able to choose what accessibility features I want enabled, like on Storyline.
If the goal was to make the matching activity work with mouse-click events and not only mouse-drags, I have another idea : Show a "selected" state on any element clicked, and have it automatically matched to the next element clicked (if from the adjacent column).I think the only option to fix the situation is to write to the Contact Support Center. They might consider making a change if they get flooded with requests.
I completely agree that there should at least be an option to turn them off. I have just started a project where I will have to do several of these part labeling matching blocks, and I have gotten feedback it is just too confusing and not intuitive. I even had trouble coming up with verbiage that doesn't confuse it further. I tried not even mentioning you could drag and drop.
Switching sides and changing to letters didn't help clear it up.It's not AS bad when everything is all text, but the first time I saw this while reviewing a teammate's design I could not intuitively determine what to do with the drop-down. There should definitely be a way to turn this on and off optionally.
I created an enhancement to my 'puzzle' skin to add styling for numbers- critical if you are using a numbered diagram. I'll post the code, as soon as someone solves this CSS puzzle with a correct response:
if i remember correctly; that would be 1, 2, 3 top to bottom ;)
Phill, what do you think, would it be possible to modify it so that the order can be set, with numbers permanently fixed on the left side?
That's an interesting idea- kind of a right-to-left (interaction) but I think it might be the most usable design as the numbers are first in my mind- especially if using a numbered diagram or numeric numbering. I wanted to keep the 'cards' format so the user definitely knows when they're connected. What do you think:
