With our LMS tool, WebCT, you can configure an announcement to appear as a pop-up window when the user logs into the site. Of course, this is designed to make it practically impossible for students to miss the announcement, which in theory, is a good thing, especially if you want to alert them to something important like a change in deadline or crucial assignment detail. But here’s the interesting usability angle: this colleague mentioned that some students had indicated to her that they ignore pop-up windows because they view them in the same way they view pop-up ads in all other websites — spam. I wonder if this was really the case or if the students were just using it as an escape hatch for avoiding responsibility for whatever the announcement may have obligated them to. If legit, it would be interesting to know what the rough percentage is out there of student users who ignore them? Has ignoring pop-up windows become such an ingrained user behavior that it’s applied even if they’re in a LMS? Based on a recent study at NC State

students seemed to find any dialog box a distraction from their assigned task; nearly half said that all they cared about was getting rid of these dialogs.

maybe …

Image credit: Swiss Bones