Characters

Storyline 1 to 2: Passport Makeover Edition

June 24, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 13 Comments

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I was always fond of this little passport how-to I did in Storyline 1, but when Articulate was kind enough to feature it on their E-Learning Examples page recently and people seemed to like it – it got me thinking about how I could update it using Storyline 2’s great features.

Navigation: Before & After

Before: A Tab-Based Layout

After: A Paris-Bound Jet Guides You

One of my favorite features in Storyline 2 is the slider for its ease of use and power to deliver a lot of information in a compact way.

I knew it would be perfect to get the entire application on one screen where the user could see everything from a high-level overview to a mid-level peek to detailed animations showing how to fill it out – simply by sliding the Paris-bound jet down the runway.

The thing is, you could still create this basic design in Storyline 1 (using this layout for a more compact presentation and navigating via clicking or tapping) – but there’s something about the slider that makes things like this easier to ideate, create, and (on the learner end) use.

Updated Animations

John Hancock Would Be Proud of the Signature Animation

The other feature-based update I made was to the animations. In the original I relied on a fade animation to bring in handwriting and typing, but being able to use the new built-in wipe animation improved the look and feel quite a bit, so I was happy about that.

See the Jet-On-the-Runway Slider!

Here’s the updated jet-fueled slider demo, and here’s the original demo for comparison. Enjoy – and bon voyage!

Using Toys in E-Learning: Employee Meeting

March 22, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 16 Comments

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This week’s Articulate challenge is to use toys to help tell a story in e-learning. My toys were game, so we went for it.

It’s Just a Meeting

The Idea

The toys I grabbed for the challenge were a little funny-looking, so for contrast I put them into a perfectly serious staff meeting.

I exploited what might be their challenges if they really worked in an office, then built the learning points around that.

Over-the-Shoulder Shot

Issues in the Office

Image Production

I took still shots of each character and had to work at getting the right angles, lighting, images sizes, etc. It took a few tries, but I eventually got what I wanted. I especially like the over-the-shoulder and head-on shots.

Audio Production

Though I wrote the script, I decided to ask Dan Sweigert if he’d do the voices. Lucky for me, he did – and I recorded it directly into Storyline.

The Benefit of Using Toys

Even in a quick demo like this it’s easy to see that using toys to mimic real-life touchy situations makes it easier to address them, and adding humor never seems to hurt.

Time to Play!

Ready to see how this meeting went? You can attend it right here.

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Keeping It Odd

March 14, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 12 Comments

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This week’s challenge is to make up an odd-sounding course title, then design the cover slide. I got inspired by some of the fauna here in South Carolina and went with it.

Our Gators

I love that we get to share this area with the local alligators. Sometimes on our walks we’ll stumble a bit too close to a guy and calmly give him a wide berth, but we all get along famously.

Our Golfers

Since golfers are also rife around here, especially near gator ponds, I considered what an e-learning course about alligator safety for those guys might look like.

The E-Learning Course

Teaching the golfer how to stay safe by showing him the alligator’s perspective seemed like an engrossing way to go. Especially if you realize, from screen one, that you may be dinner. Of course the goal would be to keep both parties safe.

Visual Design

I purchased my well-dressed golfer, but made the alligator out of PowerPoint shapes. For fonts, I liked the chunkiness of Clarendon against the fancy-restaurant deliciousness of Edwardian Script. All in all, I’m pretty happy with it.

Check it out!

Grab your golf clubs and enjoy this tantalizing title slide right here.

Build & Share Your Own Image Library!

March 2, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 9 Comments

I Took This Photo, Added Some Text, and Voilà! My Title Image

This week’s challenge is to create a set of e-learning images to share with other course designers. Recently I’ve been contributing images to MorgueFile via their daily challenges (which I wrote about here), but was excited to put together a full set of related images.

The Setting

I was headed to a nearby island with a friend on Saturday anyway, so I grabbed my camera and spent a chilly afternoon snapping away. This location is often used for group retreats, and I tried to capture as many types of usable images as possible.

Simple Backgrounds

It’s easy to make simple background images. Below left you can see my pictures of wine glasses and some dry plants. On the right are the same pictures after I applied a couple of PowerPoint effects. It’s simple and I love the result.

Left: My Unretouched Images. Right: The Same Images With Simple PowerPoint Effects

Left: My Unretouched Photos. Right: The Same Images With Simple PowerPoint Effects

Scenario Backgrounds

When I create e-learning scenarios, I try to treat them like a movie. I go for the wide establishing shot, the group shot, the two-person shot, the one-person shot, and all sorts of close-ups. I took lots of pics with that approach in mind, where you can easily add in characters. These images are also HUGE, so they’re easy to crop to focus on any area you’d like.

Here Are a Few of My Scenario Backgrounds: Just Add Characters!

Objects & Themes

Recycling? Home? Nature? Recreation? Food Service? I found lots of image subgroups to play with. With a little creativity, they can be used in endless ways.

I Love These Images For Their Great Colors and Shapes

This is a Cottage Where I Focused on Photographing Everyday Objects & Scenario Backgrounds

I Just Love These Recycling Bins – They’re Fantastic Images to Work With

These are Just a Few of the Objects I Found at a Community Dining Hall

Download Them for Free!

Update: I’m not seeing these up on MorgueFile anymore – but if you can find ’em, you can use ’em!

Play to Find Your Valentine!

February 15, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 9 Comments

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This week’s challenge is to create an interaction for Valentine’s Day. What could be more fun than that?

The Idea

I had an elaborate story/game design in mind, but needed something I could knock out far more quickly. I kept coming back to the whimsical appeal of vintage valentines and eventually found one I could imagine using.

The Original Valentine

Valentine Roulette

The problem with the spinning valentine was figuring out how to engineer it. Lucky for me, generous community member Geert De Rycke shared his javascript-powered, randomized spinning wheel and I happened to find it. Woo-hoo!

So Who Are the Hidden Valentines?

Every time someone tweets out my Dapper Dan pictograms I always say “I love those guys!” – because I do – so that’s what got me started. Using characters from past challenge entries just seemed like way to go.

The Result

Feel free to take the wheel for a spin right here and see if you find a valentine you like! There’s an excellent chance that at least one of these choices will make you happy.