Articulate Storyline

What People Love & Hate About E-Learning: Interactive Graphic

December 11, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 6 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s challenge is to create an interactive graphic based on a recent Articulate survey about what people love and hate about e-learning. So I did!

The Idea

The Original Infographic (Select Image to View)

Above all, I thought the biggest advantage of the interactive graphic would be to add a main menu so the user could quickly scan topics and jump to the details. It can be a struggle to scroll through a long graphic – especially on mobile devices – so the quick jump would be a plus.

The other thing I noticed was that even though the original infographic talks about love and hate, I wasn’t seeing much hate. So my other idea was to graphically represent that imbalance.

The Design

Ultimately I ended up designing it around two things: The idea and image of a scale to illustrate the imbalance of positive and negative survey results – and the idea and image of e-learning devices. After falling in love with a red vector scale, I let it determine part of the color scheme and most of the overall design aesthetic. That’s a pretty good scale.

I put the content detail on slide layers and let e-learning devices have a hand in presenting them.

The Influential Scale

Details On Layers

Helpful Hands

Weighing the Results

If you’d like to see my interactive version of the survey results, you can enjoy them right here. And remember – if there’s something you don’t love about e-learning, you can be the change.

Select Image to Launch Demo

The Illustrated Man Gets Conversational

December 7, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week I combined two weekly challenges into one: One about showing conversations, and one about branching scenarios. Clearly a marriage made in e-learning heaven.

The Idea

I wanted to show simple in-person conversations that are clean, clear, and creative – then structure them around a branching scenario.

The Design

I had no idea what would happen in this one, so while waiting for inspiration I started to pull in some of Storyline’s built-in characters. I’d never designed with them before, so this felt somewhat radical. Luckily, that process sparked a story.

Conversational Color

The Conversations

I eschewed bubbles, boxes, and lines and simply placed the character’s dialogue next to the character. I also like to color-coordinate their text color with their clothes. It adds interest and helps distinguish who’s saying what.

Simple Location Indicators

The Settings

I stuck with one simple geometric background throughout and only tossed in the most minimal props or location indicators as needed. It helps keep you focused on the action.

The Branching Scenario

I kept this simple but not too predictable, since that’ll kill curiosity in a heartbeat. The feedback for each choice is to show you the results of your decisions, rather than telling you what’s right or wrong. Only when you get to the end of one of the branches will you get a nice little message all wrapped up in a bow. After all, we still need a training objective – er – I mean – resolution to the story, right?

See the Results of Your Decisions!

I’m trying not to give too much away about this one – but I like it a lot and hope you do, too. If you’d like to get to know an illustrated man* a little bit better, have a look right here.

*It’s not Bradbury’s, but his is sure good, too.

Santa Likes Switching Things Up, Too!

December 6, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 11 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo (With Audio!)

This week’s Articulate challenge is to come up with creative ways to use buttons, toggles, and/or switches. I’ve had this one in the works so long that it finally morphed into a holiday challenge!

One Flat Angel

The Idea

I wanted to use switches to make a customizable greeting card that gives you a good number of options to play with.

The Design

For the visual design I wanted to keep it flat and simple, so that was pretty easy.

For the functional design I went with 3-way switches since I wanted there to be two options for every category – in addition to being able to start with and choose a neutral position. Making it a 3-way toggle seemed too confusing from the user perspective, so I went for the clarity of a switch instead.

State Changes Let You Customize the Background

It’s All States: I built the entire interaction on one slide with no layers. Everything that moves, changes, or plays does so in response to a state change.

Free Images & Music: The freebies I used this week are from flaticon.com, for the little switch icons, and audionautix.com for the music.

The Jolly Result

If you’d like to customize your card, be prepared for audio and give it a try right here! Happy holidays!

Select Image to Launch Demo (With Audio!)

New! A Deliciously Frustrating E-Learning Cereal

November 7, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

Click Image to Launch Demo – With Audio!

This week’s Articulate challenge is to create an e-learning themed cereal box, so I did my best to channel a bit of Toucan Sam and some Michael Allen and got to work.

The Idea

I started by brainstorming the usual nouns on cereal boxes: Flakes, crispies, crunch, smacks, loops, etc. Once I got to “loops” I drifted to thoughts of frustratingly locked-down e-learning navigation and came up with “Locked Navigation Loops” as my cereal.

The Design

The Navigation Police

For the visuals, I like the classic cartoon-character-on-the-cereal-box look, so my first search was for a perky prisoner. Once I found her, I grabbed an image of a cereal bowl and a cartoon cop who could enforce the rules and mixed them together with some fonts and other graphic elements in a big bowl of milk.

The audio seemed necessary to get the goofball cartoon cereal feel, so I added lots of sound effects and a lovely cartoon-y tune I found at AudioNautix.com.

Once I synced images and music, I was pretty much done. Oh – and I added some frustratingly pointless feedback since that’s the only kind I ever see when viewing e-learning courses with locked-down navigation. Call it an “homage”.

Enjoy a Little Lock-Up Time Right Now!

Here’s my cereal box demo in all of its cacophonic glory. I hope you like it!

Click Image to Launch Demo – With Audio!

Interactive Video: An Intimate Conversation with Bert

August 26, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 13 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s challenge is to create an interactive video conversation, and there was only one guy I wanted to have a sit-down with.

Bert’s Challenge Debut

The Idea

I thought chatting with Bert, who made his challenge debut in a video entry last year, might help his fans get to know him a bit better. What would coffee with Bert be like?

The Design

The Shoot

My goal was to keep this quick and simple. We propped Bert up in front of a background image of a cafe on a computer monitor, and Bert (aka Dan Sweigert) popped his iPhone on a tripod so we could capture both audio and video. I added some lighting and we knocked it out. I asked my scribbled questions and Bert answered on the fly.

The Edits

I was determined to only do video edits I could accomplish in Storyline to keep it simple. The result is the straightforward cuts you’d expect without the bells and whistles of having used an outside video editor.

The Bonus Material

The Interaction

I wanted one slide with a menu of questions you click to hear Bert’s answers. When you do, his video answer appears on a slide layer. The ambient sound of a restaurant is steadily looping underneath on the master slide.

I also added an outtake slide (the “Bonus Material”), and used a separate master slide with no audio on it so you could get that satisfyingly unedited effect.

The Result

I don’t know if you really want to have coffee with this guy, but he’s waiting at the cafe right now just hoping you’ll spend a little time with him, and you can enjoy your triple espresso with him right here. Have fun, you two!