As I mentioned recently in a couple of Facebook status updates, I just lost 5 paragraphs and 3 hours because of Blackboard Vista. Granted I should have come to expect events like these through past experience with BbV, they are nonetheless situations which could easily be avoided. The motions I went through are likely familiar to many users, leaving me to believe the BbV team insufficiently tested user experience (a belief I’ve found that many users express for various reasons). I find it very unlikely that I am the first to complain about these problems, but because they still exist, I will detail my use cases in hope that the issues will soon extinguish.
My first issue occurred when I attempted to submit a form after my session timed out. I switched from one network to another during a session and was redirected to the login page when I tried to submit a discussion post. I tried going back to the page in which I typed my post, but was redirected to a page requesting me to log in. Upon logging me in, BbV directed me to my list of classes, wholly discarding my data.
My second issue occurred in an attempt to prevent a repeat occurrence of the first issue. I switched from a window containing my post in progress to a window containing a list of discussions in the topic. I refreshed the page and was redirected to a list of my current classes. I tried to switch back to the window containing my post in progress, but found that it had vanished, wholly discarding my data once again.
Perhaps these outcomes were proper by the standards of BbV. Maybe I have become too reliant on the infinite foresight of Google and Facebook as well as the considerate interfaces of many other popular services. My rage has subsided and another hour has passed, leaving me just as unproductive in schoolwork as it found me. My deed is done; may the world of educational tools advance a little bit more safely and wisely!