Welcome to the May 2026 edition of Design Matters Digest, which explores elements of online course design and the research that can help you improve your Canvas courses. This month, we take a retrospective approach, focusing on four key design lessons from the series for better student learning experiences in Canvas.
“Course design is critical to online student engagement and retention.”
(Martin et al., 2021)
Design does matter; in online courses, research shows design matters for everything from managing cognitive load, supporting student persistence, increasing active learning, creating a welcoming environment, removing barriers, and more.
For more than two years, Cidi Labs has shared monthly, research-backed tips for building accessible, inclusive, quality Canvas learning experiences through design. And while each tip carried value, some key ideas popped up again and again, regardless of the topic.
So as we gear up for the next era of our series (stay tuned!), we’ve taken a moment to reflect on those core, repeated design ideas and distilled them into a set of four takeaways.
We’ve published those takeaways in partnership with Instructure, makers of Canvas LMS—the space where you work to deliver exceptional learning opportunities.
We’ve partnered with Instructure to bring the Design Matters takeaways to life and do a deeper dive into the research and strategies. Join us on June 11th at 11am MT for Design Matters: Key Lessons for Better Canvas Courses.
“We have created [DesignPLUS] templates for everything in Canvas to help reduce the cognitive load on our students and create an accessible and responsive design. Feedback from our students has been extremely positive.”
– Nick Wilson, Team Lead of Instruction Systems Administration, Butler University
Citations:
Martin, F., Bolliger, D. U., & Flowers, C. (2021). Design matters: Development and validation of the online course design elements (OCDE) instrument. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(2), 46-71.
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