Becker, Matthias [matthias.becker], 02 JUN 2026: Hi everyone,

as discussed in the PR #11570, I'm continuing the discussion here in the feature request to provide more transparency.

This is Part 1 of my new feedback - I'll follow up with Part 2 tomorrow. Today I ran a short focus group including a survey among a group of people at my university who work extensively with ILIAS and use it heavily. We focused on icon meaning, button implementation (with or without labels), and potential improvements. I also have short sessions planned with 8 students tomorrow afternoon, since in my opinion feedback from everyday users is even more important than from power users - simply because there are far more of them. That said, I wanted to share this first round now so it's available in an organized form and you have the chance to give feedback on this part before the holiday.

For the focus group, I asked participants what they thought each button does. I removed all labels beforehand, as I specifically wanted to test the visual language of the icons and find out whether icons alone are sufficient.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to collect feedback on the input field from the full group since we ran out of time, but 4 users gave me informal feedback that they find the input field more disruptive than useful.

Verbal Feedback (Between Questions)

The group strongly agreed that all buttons need text labels.

The question came up why the most recognizable copy and share icons aren't used instead. The group concluded that more familiar icons would be preferable for both actions. However, one could argue that, in the case of the Share icon, this is a matter of which operating system is most commonly used. The "three dots" icon is the standard Google/Android share icon, while the currently used icon (the "outgoing tray") is the iOS equivalent. I followed up via chat to ask the participants of the focus group which operating system each participant uses on their smartphone - it turned out to be 3 iOS and 5 Android users. However, only one person recognized the current icon as a share action in this context - who happened to be an Android user. Therefore, my recommendation would be to use the "three dots" variant, even though iOS is statistically increasing among younger generations. That said, tomorrow's sessions with students may yield different insights on this.

Copy alternative:

Share alternative:

It was also noted that buttons in ILIAS - and in this case as well - are generally very small, and that both the default font size and button size should be increased.

Short labels like Copy / Share / QR Code were considered useful. "QR Code" alone works, but "Show QR Code" would be slightly clearer about the action (though it lengthens the button).

The heading is currently quite small and can easily be overlooked in context. This means short button labels like Copy / Share / QR Code only make sense if it's visually clear what is being copied, shared, or displayed. From this I'd also conclude that for screen readers it's essential to either a) establish a clear programmatic connection between the section heading and the buttons, or b) use precise aria-labels that fully describe each action - e.g. "Copy link to this page" or "Copy permanent link" (depending on the chosen heading).

The visual feedback on the buttons is appreciated, but the tooltip is more noticeable and provides more precise feedback through its longer description.

My Recommendations

I'll follow up tomorrow with feedback from everyday users (students) to see whether it aligns with what the power users reported.

Becker, Matthias [matthias.becker], 03 JUN 2026: Hi everyone,

This is Part 2 of my feedback. Only 6 out of the originally planned 8 students were able to participate, but the results were still very insightful.

As with Part 1, I asked participants what they thought each button does, with labels removed.

Verbal Feedback (Between Questions)

The icons were recognized more readily by the students than by the power users - especially the Share icon.

Both the survey responses and the verbal feedback clearly indicate that all buttons should have labels.

Button and icon size was again criticized as far too small - this time even when zoomed in. This reinforces the need for labels: while students recognized the icon meaning better than the power users, they still criticized the icons as hard to see.

There was no strong preference for label length. Some favored longer labels like "Copy link / Share link / Show QR Code" at all times, while others found "Copy / Share / QR Code" sufficient when paired with a clear heading.

Two participants initially found the input field useful, thinking they could use it to verify whether the link in the address bar matched the link in the input field. Once informed that these links are not the same, they were quite confused by it. Following this, I asked all participants where they would copy a link to share - 5 out of 6 said they would use the address bar. This is a broader topic that has been discussed before, but it highlights in my opinion the need to revisit the link in the address bar - especially given that students at our university receive videos, guides as PDFs, an ILIAS help wiki, and an onboarding at the start of their studies explaining how and where to find the correct link for sharing in ILIAS.

The visual success/error feedback within the buttons was rated as barely noticeable, largely due to the small button size. Additionally, there was no error feedback at all for Mozilla Firefox users who had dom.webshare.enabled set to false (the default setting), meaning they were unable to use the share functionality without knowing why.

My Recommendations