Inspiration

Intro Screen

I looked at a lot of interaction types, but when nothing struck me I thought I could at least start by choosing characters to work with. That’s when I remembered I’ve got good stock images of children. When I started looking at extremes (who’s the youngest?) then thought about an opponent (who’s the most unlikely?) I suddenly had my theme.

Content

Going for ridiculous words and context sentences was the only way to do it, and the greater the contrast between the participant prompts, the better. Unfortunately, I have far more knowledge of goofball cop humor than little girl references, so I just had to wing it on the kid side.

Quiz Slide in Action

Building It

I always have to go back to refresh my memory about how to engineer these things:

Each question slide is actually a fill-in-the-blank graded quiz slide.

To capture the running game scores I created variables for KidTotal and CopTotal.

To add points to their scores, on the “correct” feedback layer I added a trigger that adds a value of 1 to the appropriate KidTotal or CopTotal variable at the beginning of the timeline.

To display their scores, I inserted reference fields on the scoreboards to show the current value of KidTotal and CopTotal.

I also created variables to take you to one of three possible endings based on the final score.

I couldn’t get the text entry screens to refresh after hitting Replay. Those kept holding on to whatever was entered in the prior round. I ended up adding a hidden results slide to create the needed variables so I could add a “reset results” trigger to the Replay button. That worked.

Select Image to Launch Demo

I haven’t participated in many (OK – one) of the weekly design challenges that David Anderson puts out to the Articulate community, usually because of looming deadlines. But if so many other busy designers are doing it, what’s my deal? So this week, casting all current deadlines to the wind, I took up David’s gauntlet and spent my Friday night Storylining away.

This week’s Articulate challenge is based on his blog post about hiding the “next” button until the learner completes a challenge about what’s just been presented. (Or it can be used as a sort of pre-test to unlock the “next” button and allow the learner to skip ahead.)

From an instructional design perspective it would have to be used incredibly judiciously; though if sprinkled in a few key places in just the right course, it could be effective. But this challenge was about the technical aspects of building it, so that’s what I focused on.

My Example

I chose the HR Audit topic because it seemed appropriately dry. I’m picturing a nodding-off learner who’s about to get a disappearing-“next”-button wake-up call.

Basically, at the end of the slide I ask the learner a question about what they just saw. Then I ask them to enter a certain number they just saw. The “next” button is visible but disabled. If their answer is incorrect, they get a message asking them to try again, or to review the slide content. Once they get it right, the “next” button is enabled and they go on to their glorious reward in the final slide.

The Appropriately Dry Content

The Disabled Next Button

The Enabled Next Button

Your Glorious Reward

The Technical Side

David wanted a text-based entry field for the learner to complete in order to unlock the “next” button, so in Storyline that means adding a data entry field. I’d never had a reason to use them before, so I used a post on the E-Learning Heroes site from Jeanette Brooks that explained how to set them up. It would help to have some experience with variables, but it’s probably not necessary for the average intrepid Storyline user.

After that it was all about the layers and states and triggers. I won’t get into extreme detail, but on the main slide I added a trigger so that at the end of the timeline it would show a layer. At the end of the timeline I also animated out any potential answers on the slide so they weren’t visible.

On the layer I put the question, the data entry field, the “next” button (set to an initial state of “disabled”), a line of text feedback if the answer is incorrect (set to an initial state of “invisible”), and a “review” button so they could see the slide content again if the answer is incorrect (also set to an initial state of “invisible”.) Then I got all trigger-happy until it behaved properly.

Select Image to Launch Demo

See it Here!

Test your ability to withstand the pressure of HR Audit prep right here!

A Non-Regulation Spelling Bee

Inspiration

Content

Design

Building It

The Result

No One Loves The “Next” Button Until It’s Gone

My Example

The Technical Side

See it Here!

Voiceover

Inspiration

Content

Design

Building It

The Result

My Example

The Technical Side

See it Here!