Instructional Design

Seriously – How Do You Navigate This Course?

August 1, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 3 Comments

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Do you know how many times I’ve heard about a learner getting confused about course navigation? Close to zero. Nonetheless, organizations like to include instructions, and those instructions tend to get short shrift. So when David Anderson challenged us to get a little more creative with navigation intros – I was in.

The Idea

I wanted an approach that was simple and replicable; but unique enough to capture the learner’s attention. I hadn’t used photographic characters for awhile, so I grabbed one and riffed off of his lab coat to determine the topic.

Though my process was backwards, the idea is that you can theme your navigation instructions to match your course content. It makes it more fun and gets the learner ready for the topic.

The Design

I like Coolors’ navigation tutorial, so I played with their center-of-screen dashboard approach, which then gave my lab-coated gentleman the freedom to point out navigation elements on the rest of the screen.

Coolors’ Navigation Start

My Navigation Start

Coolors’ Navigation Navigation

My Navigation Navigation

I also made sure that if you choose to skip the navigation intro that you’re confronted with a nurse with some good advice, but your consequences are your own.

The Result

It’s simple, but still more interesting than any of the standard navigation instructions I’ve done. With more time I’d refine it, but this gives you the general idea.

If you’d like to navigate these white-coated waters, you can see it right here!

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An Interactive Conversational Game

July 19, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

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This week I took the current two-truths-and-a-lie ELH challenge and combined it with last week’s interactive conversation challenge to make a single conversational icebreaker.

The Idea

Keeping it Conversational

Keeping it Interactive

I wanted to use the interactive conversation to introduce the icebreaker guessing game. It helped give it a bit more context and natural flow.

I also wanted to narrow the icebreaker topic so it wasn’t completely random. It made more sense to focus on just one part of my career, and language teaching narrowly won out over a couple of other options.

The Design

Chalkboard Textures & Colors

Using a chalkboard background and simple images seemed appropriate. I’d have looooooved to add audio and more elaborate animations and images, but kept it simple in the interest of time.

Play the Game!

Ready to see how well I can (or can’t) lie? It’s your call now – and you can play the game right here!

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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!

How to Go Full-Screen & Lose the Player in Storyline

June 7, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

This timeline looks like it's floating; just on a black background.

This timeline looks like it’s floating in space.

She doesn't need a frame or player. Do you?

She doesn’t need a frame or a player. Do you?

I love making e-learning look like it’s floating in space without the traditional box-like appearance or standard player, and I guess I’m not alone since I get a lot of questions about how to do it.

This entire interaction is a wheel that seems to spin in space: No player, no frame.

Going Full-Screen

Going full-screen is simple. In Storyline go to Player > Other > Player Size > select “Scale player to fill browser window”. For the Browser Size option select “Display at user’s current browser size”. To get that wide-screen effect I choose Design > Story Size: 16:9.

Important tip about going full-screen: Be sure your content still looks great at full screen. No one wants to see pixelated, stretched, or otherwise tormented images. If you’re going to do it, plan your images accordingly.

This game seems to float because the blue page background matches the slide background.

Losing the Player

To lose the player, the bottom line is you’re going to turn off the player features and either make all of your player elements the same color as your page background or make them transparent. This is what I do:

Player > Features > deselect everything. Player > Colors & Effects > Page Background: I choose the same color as my slide background. Player > Colors & Effects > Color Scheme > Show Advanced Color Editing > Edit Item > Base: I make each of these elements 100% transparent. If you have other player elements (menus, buttons, etc.) that you want to blend in, change their colors or make them transparent using this same menu.

Need More Details?

If you’d like to know more about making your player disappear check out Articulate’s instructions for using a chromeless player. Then set your e-learning free!

Turkey Needs Photo Sliders!*

May 22, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice Leave a Comment

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Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Harbor, Fethiye

This week’s challenge is to create a photo slider. I’d never made one before, but with Storyline 2 and a few photos in hand, I was ready!

The Idea

To make the slider I trotted out some pics I took in Turkey. I wanted the demo to be simple, invite exploration, and be self-explanatory.

The Design

To establish the scene I started with an overview map of Turkey with my two photo locations highlighted.

I wanted the user to be able to see the topics of the photos up front so it’s easy to get a quick overview of the content and go directly to whatever they’d like.

Color provides the visual cue to tell you where you are. The title (Turkey), location (Map, Istanbul, or Fethiye) and the slider thumb all change color in unison depending on what you’re viewing.

I’m actually quite happy with the idea and the effect. It’s subtle in this demo, but I’d love to use it again.

Ready for Some Turkey?

You can see the demo right here!

*See: Mars Needs Women. These things happen after a long day.