Update: 32 new avatars available! 😍

Dude bring itback

#BringBackBackgrounds

Add this to your username to show your support to bring the backgrounds back, or as I said earlier, our wallpapers to our rooms.

I'm not sure trends are the best way of solving things, though.

I just want people to know that the removal of backgrounds wasn't an accident, and have people visibly show their support of backgrounds :)

I just want the backgrounds back. I understand that we are supposed to be using KA for learning and NOT for chasing after cool backgrounds. However, a customized background actually HELPED me to study. I'm not sure how to explain this, but I had this great feeling when I looked at my profile. I felt like I could learn anything. And now, every time I look at this "simplified profile background" I feel like slamming the keyboard. 
I don't mean to be rude. I just want Khan Academy to understand that removing the background was a bad design decision, and it doesn't even help us study, which is what I think it was intended for. The backgrounds didn't "distract students from learning". Firstly, the profile isn't the place where you actually watch the videos and learn. Secondly, those backgrounds weren't Star Wars posters or anything. They were just simple designs that looked great.
Again, I don't want to be rude. I'm just hoping KA would listen to its users because I haven't seen any comments in favour of the removal of backgrounds.

For those who can use extensions, the Chrome extension Dark Reader is an extension which can help use dark mode. With a bit of  tweaks in the settings, you can get this:

Please bring back backgrounds!!

I was looking forward to getting the millionaire background and then...

POOF...  UTTER DISAPPOINTMENT

I liked when I logged into Khan Academy I was greeted by a page that had a fun, nice background with my avatar and it encouraged me to get learning. Now it's white. Like a blank sheet of paper. My profile looks not as interesting. So the avatars, you don't really have to work for them it just automatically gave them to me. I think I would appreciate them better if I had to work for them since it takes effort to get them. Like badges.

I personally don't think the background were a distraction, I thought it was fun and I like fun educational sites and it kept me motivated.  

Also can I just say that the badges like Cypress, Redwood, Sequoia, and Bristlecone don't work anymore because(I think) they removed streaks so it stoped counting the days?  Kinda a useless badge since it dons't work, or can you make it work that'll be great! My profile says I've been here for a year and I still haven't gotten the badge. My friend has also been on here for over a year and still hasn't gotten the badge. 

Could you add an option to change our backgrounds back to an older one? Setting the default as a neutral gray would make sense, so if new students thought that they liked it, they could just keep it as that. 

Dear Khan Academy,

Many people have simply repeated the same request over and over again (which really drives the point), however, I think I could better serve you by offering a few solutions instead of simply pointing out problems.

Microsoft got it right.
With the Minecraft community, they propose an idea (before publishing it) or have a poll of some sort for the next feature.
They wait for community feedback and change the development accordingly.

Originally, however, they started much like you are doing now, pushing things they think the community will like, without actually asking them. Hence 1.9 combat (which basically everyone was mad about), much like here with the removal of backgrounds and the unsolicited avatar style change.

You need some way of connecting and getting input more directly from the community while in the process of developing an idea. [BEFORE YOU PUBLISH IT]

That alone will get you quite far in making Khan Academy the world's best learning platform, since the community will be directly assisting in the development of Khan, khan will be built for the community itself, not for what some of you may think the community wants.

Might I suggest designing a few backgrounds or avatars and letting the community 'spend' energy points (which must be earned after you start the event) to push for their favorite?
That would likely encourage many users to learn as they work toward getting their favorites added.
Of course, you don't have to make it a contest, you can make it so there's a special avatar that requires say, 2,000,000 energy points instead. (believe it or not, people who care enough to stick with khan... WILL WANT IT. Badly.)

Thank you for your time--
Respectfully,
~ Ender Haven

I understand that the design team has to renovate the code, which means adding some features, and removing others. But I would like to note a couple things...

It seems that several of the EP badges, challenge patches, streaks, and now backgrounds, have recently been removed, which cuts out a bunch of the motivation to learn new things (especially if you're not required to learn them) . All of those features, each in it's own time/place, are what got me started with trying to learn here on KA. Since then I've not been required by my teacher (which is also my mom, I'm home-schooled) to use a math book for the last 2-3 years, yet I've still been learning a lot of math.

Also just the day before backgrounds were removed, a friend of mine (who recently joined KA), told me how he wanted to work on towards earning the 1,000,000 EP background...

I understand that what I say may not help to sway any decision to bring some of those features back, but I feel it should be mentioned that those features are missed, and could help future learners, as they helped me, to succeed in Khan Academy's goal that: You can learn anything.

Why are backgrounds gone. It makes my profile ugly. The new avatars should be replaced with user-made avatars.

The so-called improved backgrounds and avatars are hearing massive amounts of protest. I agree. Now, I have to squint to read the bio - black on cream just isn't as contrasting as white on black. And maybe the backgrounds were a distraction - but they were also motivation. After a few months, you unlock all the avatars - now what? The last background involves the greatest amount of points - the last motivation in terms of profile design for many. I sincerely hope this will have a part in bringing back backgrounds. 

Regards, 

Toxicodendron Radicans.

Let's create a change in Khan Academy. Release projects that go against this. That will get the attention of guardians.

Please bring back backgrounds. I loved that everyone was able to have their own unique backgrounds, and I loved the way mine looked. I know many people worked very hard to have backgrounds they liked, and now they feel like that's been ripped away from them and all their hard work was for nothing.

When I first saw the update, I was excited to see the new avatars, but thought my background hadn't loaded, and legit reloaded the page three times and checked the customization option before realizing that my backgrounds were gone. 

I haven't seen a single person who has said that they liked the removal of backgrounds, and the whole community is angry about it. Right now, a program talking about how much they dislike backgrounds is at the top of the hotlist, and this post has -40 likes. Doesn't that tell you something about what the community thinks about it? Isn't this whole site supposed to be making everything be fun and having a good community that listens?

Also, it would be nice if you added some user made avatars, there are many that coders have spend weeks and months on. 

Whatever you do, please, PLEASE do not get rid of the avatars we know and love. 

Please listen to the community and #BringBackBackgrounds

Edit: Also, I'm upset that backgrounds are too hard to add in, but 32 new avatars don't seem to be too hard.

We, the Khan Academy Community, are greatly displeased by the new avatars. This is not an upgrade, but a degradation. Please pay attention to the signs we have given you. The passionate letters on this article. The project on top of the hotlist that addresses the issues on this site. The number of downvotes on the announcement of new avatars. New users should also experience the joy of unlocking the second last background and experience the thrill of knowing your goal - to get the millionaire background - and finally unlocking it. I knew these joys before and I was eager for others to experience it too - before they got removed. Please. Listen to this plea.  And #Bring Backgrounds Back. 

Thank you. 

Changes KA introduced to the site a week - a month ago. Streaks, MCAT, GMAT, NCLEX-RN courses and backgrounds removed, avatars that clash together introduced. Huge step-down. 

I think the new avatars are cute! If you don't like it, nobody is making you use it. It's not hurting anyone. However, I do agree that the backgrounds did make it look so much better. The shade of the background is much too close to the white of the rest of the page for my liking. If the backgrounds were making the transition to Go harder, maybe add solid color backgrounds? It seems like they would be simpler, and make the page look nicer.

Ok here is what i have to say:

1. The new avatars are well....childish. Really, does the aqualine or the duskpin or the piceratops match with these new avatars you've just put out? The old avatars were cool and these new ones look like something 5 year olds would like.

2. Backgrounds. I cannot explain how much i was frustrated when the backgrounds were removed. Really what else is there to work for except for avatars? These new backgrounds are dull, monotonous, bland, boring, I can go on and on.

3. 

"We found that, even though some people loved the different profile backgrounds, very few learners were engaging with them."

Please tell me who did you survey? Who did you ask? Where is your proof that most KA users do not care about backgrounds?

4. I think you should next time ask. Do a poll like Minecraft to see what the users want.

Thank you for reading,

TayyabR

Please bring back the backgrounds! We humbly beg of you!

I love this website, but the aesthetic you guys are trying to make is not that good. This used to be a site with good changes. But now, things are out of hand. Next thing you know, the old avatars will be eliminated.

Hey everyone - I wanted to give you an update on recent internal discussions around backgrounds.

Since this background change was launched, there's been many thoughtful points raised in this thread and elsewhere and discussed within multiple teams at Khan Academy, and I have a couple of takeaways from them to share.

One of the biggest conclusions I want to go ahead and be transparent with y'all about is that the option for multiple backgrounds isn't going to be re-added. I know this is not the news this group wanted to hear, but due to the code migration project taking up nearly all of our development time, and the lack of usage of this feature (meaning that a very low percentage of people ever changed their background from the default design), it won't be something that gets prioritized in the foreseeable future.

However, given the feedback about the current default background color, the design team is taking some time this week to evaluate various other options that might work well as a new background color and text combination. Although to be totally clear here too - any new designs would need to work within accessibility guidelines around color and contrast, as well as fit well with the Khan Academy brand language, so we can't promise a specific outcome at this moment. I should have more information about this project on Friday.

To be honest, these conversations have been tough - we truly wish we had a team big enough to fulfill so many more of these learner, teacher, and parent requests while improving site performance, reliability, and security, but we are a relatively small team and we do need to make difficult tradeoffs as a result. But I will say that I think the team has learned a lot from these retrospective discussions that will improve our updates in the future, so thank you all again for the feedback. We seriously appreciate the passion y'all have for Khan Academy and for each other.

Here are my humble opinions about this:

Firstly, the avatars are a nice addition and matches KA's new (and constantly changing, I might as well add) style. However, they contrast deeply with the older avatars.

I honestly do not really mind the new avatars (they are kind of cute), but removing the backgrounds are just not really a good idea.

I'd say that you adding new avatars was a pretty good update, but no backgrounds?

I get that the new avatars may or may not match with backgrounds. But maybe not choose the boring color gray there is on our profiles now?

I propose maybe just making the backgrounds white, or something to match the page style. Just a gray that comes out of nowhere makes no sense at all.

Looking forward to different background colors. Anything other than the plain white we have now.

@Laurie thank you for the explanation.

I’m curious to know how you calculated how many users never changed their backgrounds. My guess is that many users you thought were uninterested in background were really just uninterested in Khan Academy. You could have double checked to see if they had changed their avatar, participated in community discussions for at least a couple weeks, gotten many energy points, etc (assuming you didn’t). There are probably a lot of dead accounts on KA, but that’s not the same as accounts without interest in backgrounds. And what about people who just enjoyed the default background? Clearly, I don’t see anyone here who didn’t appreciate backgrounds, so it’s hard for me to believe any active learners didn’t.

If it’s a problem with changing to Go, just don’t make backgrounds be backend. I know it seems like I’m arguing against a brick wall, but programming is all about finding different solutions. You can have one background image which is the default for all users. It’s not the best option, but it would be better than what we have now. You could even make it a new image, tailored to Khan Academy’s new look. Another option is to have a simple UI which lets you choose from a set of new KA backgrounds and records it with localStorage if the backend is really that maxed out. You can even easily keep it in the backend if you just take a moment to condense the code. Looking at the current API, there’s a HUGE amount of data for backgrounds

"background": {
"translatedDisplayName": "Photon Two",
"imagePath": "/images/profile/backgrounds/bg-photon-2.jpg",
"displayName": "Photon Two",
"name": "photon-2",
"thumbSrc": "https://cdn.kastatic.org/images/profile/backgrounds/bg-photon-2-preview.png",
"translatedRequirements": [
"Earn 100,000 energy points"
],
"rewardType": "profile_background",
"thumbnailSrc": "https://cdn.kastatic.org/images/profile/backgrounds/bg-photon-2.jpg",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kastatic.org/images/profile/backgrounds/bg-photon-2.jpg",
"thumbnailPath": "",
"thumbPath": "/images/profile/backgrounds/bg-photon-2-preview.png"
},

No wonder the developers want to remove it! But do we really need all that data? I think it could work just as well with just one property to specific the background. Of course you would still need some API for the UI to select a background, but that could be one endpoint rather than one for every user. Is one line of JSON really going to break Khan Academy like you make it seem it would?

Too everyone else,

If Khan Academy won’t or can’t listen to the community, don’t start being immature and insulting them. This is a nonprofit organization which you get to use. Instead, contribute to the discussion when you have something constructive or helpful to say. Insults hurt the community and our cause.

Thank you for your explanation and being honest with us. I hope that in the future you would run a poll before making the final changes to get community feedback and be more clear with us as to why your changing things upfront. If you had put your explanation in the announcement you probably wouldn't have gotten such a huge wave of hate on it. 

I hope that you're able to come up with an option that makes both sides happy soon. 

"Please tell me who did you survey? Who did you ask? Where is your proof that most KA users do not care about backgrounds?"

TayyabR

For real, got me shaking my head. What's your sample size/group? Users who've been on Khan Academy twice? You guys had something good going. Now I'm not so sure.

Well, TBH, Backgrounds make it look epic, and really, and it's not worth losing backgrounds just for NOT fitting avatars, making it look like preschoolers should use them.

In my opion,You should keep backgrounds and make the new avatars BETTER because now i feel like i wasted my time getting my fav background and not many people like the new avatars and not many people like not having backgrounds  even someone made a program called #bringbackbackgrounds

Khan Academy really thought they did something lmaooo, just bring back the backgrounds how hard is it to listen to what the users actually want? 

My eyes hurt because there isn't any background on my dashboard. Too bright! Wish there will be more new badges, avatars, backgrounds I could earn by working on it, not for free! That would much more motivational for people. It would be much more appreciative when Khan Academy would let us know when they update and change the website. I don't understand why they retired and removed a few badges and the streak last time and this time the background. Wish the backgrounds will come back. Otherwise, I do love Khan Academy but the few recent updates made the site less more interesting...