Characters

Video: How to Customize This Sobered-Up Drinking Game

June 6, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

I’ve just taken my original German drinking game created in Articulate Storyline and made it into a free template that I talked about recently. Now I’ve recorded two videos to help you use the template. You can download the free Storyline template here, and I also made a PowerPoint version you can download here.

Video #1: Original vs. the Template

In this video I walk you through the features of the original game, then compare them to the template. Kind of a nice overview. If you’d prefer to see captures of the screens compared, they’re at the end of this post. I created this for the Storyline version, but PowerPoint users can get some useful information from it, too.

Video #2: How to Customize the Storyline Template

In this video I show you the customizable features you can make your own. Again, I created it for the Storyline version, but PowerPoint users can get some useful information from it, too.

Have Fun!

I hope these walk-throughs help as you go forth to create your own games. Enjoy!

A Non-Regulation Spelling Bee

June 2, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 8 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate challenge, with a nod to the latest National Spelling Bee, is to build an interactive vocabulary quiz. It’s a great challenge because you can take it in so many directions.

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

Design

I focused on designing a quick, clean interaction because it’s funnier. I’m pretty happy with it, given the time frame.

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.

The Result

Select Image to Launch Demo

I think it’s funny. My clue is when I can’t stop laughing long enough to record audio, but it was pretty late at night, so maybe I was just punchy.

I hope you enjoy it – you can see it right here!

Step Graphics to Success as an E-Learning Designer

May 30, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 19 Comments

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This week’s challenge was to create a step graphic to tell a story or explain a process. It came at the end of a week where I kept hearing concerns from e-learning designers who felt stuck due to lack of skills, experience, usable portfolio pieces, visibility in the field, and/or confidence. So when the challenge hit, that was my topic.

Step Graphic Main Screen

Design

I wanted it to be fresh, direct, and maybe a bit inspiring – so I chose the character, the approach, and the background based on that.

The layout bothered me for a full week. Still does, but I have to let it go. I tried countless ideas with different graphics, colors, fonts, animations, and audio. It started out with more depth (links to resources, etc.) but it was taking too long, so I stripped it down and kept it simple. My concern was keeping the user’s attention focused on an already-busy screen. It seems to work, based on the little bit of user testing I did, so I’m going with it.

The step navigation is simple. I chose buttons with a full set of states, including a clear selected state so it’s easy to see where you are.

Content

I added the intro screen to make it clear that you should probably be (a) an e-learning designer who (b) has these goals, if the content is going to apply to you.

After that, it’s what I do each week for the challenges combined with a little bit of advice based on personal experience.

The Result

Ready to give it a try? Take a look! And if you’re an e-learning designer who feels stuck or wants to learn more and improve your skills, you might want to give the challenges a try. They’ve worked for me!

Select Image to Launch Demo

Free to Good Home: Playful Game Template

May 27, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

Select Image to Launch Original Game

Select Image to Launch Template Demo

. . . .

The Source File Dilemma

People seemed to really like this German drinking game I created for an Articulate challenge a while back. I got requests for the source file but didn’t want to violate license agreements by handing it out with assets intact, and also didn’t want to hand out a stripped file that wasn’t fully functional.

The Happy Result & Lots of Free Games

Last week, still getting requests for the file, I finally took time to rework it so it was clean, easy to customize, and something I could offer as a free download. I wanted to maintain a sense of style and all of the functionality while still leaving it wide open to customize, and I’m pretty happy with the result.

By complete serendipity, David Anderson featured 10 free Storyline e-learning game templates on the Articulate site this week and was able to include mine as one of them. There’s a good chance that any or all of these games will get your creative juices flowing, and you can get all of them right here!

2 Free Templates: Storyline & PowerPoint!

Here’s the download page for the Storyline template, and since people without Storyline wanted to use it, too – I created a PowerPoint version you can download, too!

Videos to Help You Customize

I made a couple of videos to show you a feature comparison and the customization points you’ll want to hit. You can see them here.

Screen Captures Compared

I also created side-by-side screen captures, seen below, to help you see the original next to the template. Click on any image to see it larger.

Introduction

Game Start

Game Board

Progress Meter

Challenge Question

Feedback When Correct

Feedback When Incorrect

The Joy of Success

Let Me Know!

If you have ideas for how you could use this template – or if you’ve already used it! – I hope you’ll let me know. I’d love to hear what you did or would like to do. You can leave a comment below. And have fun!

A Model Smart Enough to Teach Itself

May 15, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

This week’s Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenge is to create an interaction to teach something about instructional design. So I took my favorite piece of e-learning wisdom, Michael Allen’s CCAF (Context-Challenge-Activity-Feedback) design model, and used it to teach itself.

Come On In – The Context Is Fine!

Your Context (Select Image to Launch Demo)

I plunged the learner into a demonstration of CCAF by supplying some context. Turns out you’re an e-learning designer who takes pride in creating effective learning. (Who knew?)

Your Challenge

Your challenge is to create fabulous e-learning using the CCAF model. If you accept the challenge and fail, you will torment your learners with terrible e-learning. If you succeed, learners will sing your praises and the world will be a better place. You have the option to check out a handful of CCAF tips before you start, but it’s always more fun to just dive in and see what happens.

There’s Something In My Activity

Your Activity

Since the activity part of this CCAF demonstration is to choose effective design elements using all four parts of the CCAF model, this is where it gets a little mind-bending – not for the user so much as the designer. But my CCAF-inside-of-CCAF-induced headaches this week are distant memories now, and they were worth it.

Everything’s Feedbacking – Can’t You Hear It?!*

Your Feedback

The feedback focuses on showing you the direct result your design choices had on the learner. However, since there are five possible outcomes (choosing 1, 2, 3, 4, or none of the ideal design options) – and I wanted you to be able to go back and play with it to get different results – I decided to give an indication of how many good choices you made, too.

Custom Results Help – Thank You E-Learning Heroes!

I’d never needed so many custom results slides before, and lucky for me – as always! – the Articulate forums came to the rescue. It involved creating 5 custom feedback layers on my results slide – then creating a trigger on the results slide telling it to show the appropriate layer based on the learner’s score using a built-in variable. My shout-out goes to Blair Parkin who offered this helpful little nugget in response to a question, and it really helped me out.

Blair Parkin’s Trigger Magic

Enjoy!

Hope you like this little demo. It lets you be the superhero e-learning designer you always knew you were, and you can try it out right here.

*Gift to self. It’s an impassioned cry on an Apples in Stereo song that I can’t get out of my head when I think of feedback.