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Jackie Van Nice

E-Learning Goodness by Jackie Van Nice

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Show Your Work

The Challenge of Making Progress: Refreshing Your Online E-Learning Demos

April 17, 2022 By Jackie Van Nice 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s challenge is to create a progress indicator to display learner status, and this time it’s personal.

The Idea

As a recent learner on the topic of why I should bother to refresh my own e-learning demos, I thought I’d share a progress indicator that ever-so-clearly showed me my own learner status. If you’d like, you can read about that journey right here, but the idea is simple.

I wanted to show an e-learning designer whose online demos have gradually disappeared because the files have not been updated and republished.

The Design

The design is clean and minimal. An e-learning designer represents the learner and conveys a bit of the emotion of it all. I used one of Storyline’s modern illustrated characters, which was easy and saved time. The color palette is based on her outfit.

No Progress Yet

The Progress Indicator(s)

The starting point of the main progress indicator is what I experienced in real life: A series of online demos that no longer play. As the learner makes progress towards learning what to do to resolve the issue, the demos begin to become functional again.

A secondary progress indicator is the list of recommended steps that start to appear as you answer each question correctly.

The Result

Ready to make all that pain go away and refresh some e-learning demos? You can take this one for a spin right here.

Filed Under: E-Learning, Front Featured Tagged With: Articulate Storyline, Characters, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Emotional Engagement, Instructional Design, Show Your Work, Visual Design

“Please Refresh Us!” Love, Your Online E-Learning Demos

April 17, 2022 By Jackie Van Nice Leave a Comment

The Heartbreak of Demo Neglect

I began participating in Articulate’s delightfully addictive E-Learning Challenges more than 8 years ago, and I’ve designed and developed 130+ entries and written posts about each one.

Some entries took the form of images, podcasts, videos, interviews, or Rise interactions – but 100+ of them were in Storyline, and I published and uploaded those demos to my site so you could take them for a spin. Because fun!

Fickle, Fickle Technology

But development tools, online security protocols, web browsers, and mobile devices are constantly changing and unless you’re regularly republishing your e-learning examples, users are probably staring at blank or spinning screens of nothingness where all the good stuff used to be. (Sorry ’bout that.)

My ELH Challenge Entry This Week: No Progress Yet

You Don’t Have Time for This Nonsense

I don’t have to tell you why few (if any) of us regularly republish our examples. It’s a task that gets back-burnered as you get swept into exhilarating new interests and projects.

Why would I voluntarily halt all of that life-giving exhilaration to dig up 100+ dusty source files, upgrade each one to the latest version of Storyline, apply the most current mobile-friendly player, test them, make a variety of adjustments, publish them, and try to figure out how to re-upload the published files in a by-now-completely-altered back-end environment? Wouldn’t it make more sense to see what’s happening on Catfish UK?

The Turning Point: Love Triumphs Over Shadiness

What finally got my attention was a hosting company that had thoroughly lost the plot. It was not looking good, and as the weeks dragged on I prepared for a full salvage operation by going through every post and page on my site to document details in case I needed to reconstruct it from scratch.

The completely unexpected result was that I fell in love with the work all over again. In the initial rush of creating it I never stopped to fully appreciate it. Now I couldn’t be prouder of it or happier that I did it. Even the old cringey stuff. It was time to show it some love.

This Week’s ELH Challenge

This week’s challenge is to design a progress indicator to show learner status. I used this experience to create my entry, using lots of blank demo screens as my progress indicator starting point. You can check it out right here.

Select Image to See My ELH Challenge Entry

More to Come, DON*

I’ve learned a few things while revisiting and updating 100+ samples of my work in Storyline. I’ll be sharing more of that new-found wisdom soon, unless Netflix suddenly puts out a new season of Murderville.

*Depending on Netflix

Filed Under: E-Learning, Front Featured, Working for Yourself Tagged With: Articulate Storyline, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Professional Development, Show Your Work

When Postcards Need Glossaries

May 14, 2018 By Jackie Van Nice 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate ELH Challenge is to create an example of a glossary for e-learning. I’ve been meaning to make one lately, so this was a good chance to play.

The Idea

People have done some wonderfully creative interactions for this challenge that you can check out here. In my case I wanted to create an über-practical glossary that was incredibly quick to build, easy to maintain, and that could handle a lot of entries. Oh, and my example helps decode German idioms used by someone visiting Bali.

The Design

Back of the Postcard

Back of the Postcard

The Postcard

The postcard itself is straightforward: A front-of-postcard screen and a back-of-postcard screen. On the back of the postcard there’s an instruction to hover over/select underlined text to see its meaning. When you do, a lightboxed glossary slide is displayed.

The Glossary

Inserted Table Lightboxed Glossary

Inserted Table Lightboxed Glossary

The glossary itself is built using an inserted Storyline 360 table; a feature I love. In this example I only have a few glossary entries, but for more you could either place a longer table into a scrolling panel, or you could use multiple glossary screens with lightbox navigation to jump between them.

The Result

Ready to see which German idioms cause vacation confusion? See the glossary that straightens it all out in this air mail special delivery interaction!

Filed Under: E-Learning Tagged With: Articulate 360, Articulate Storyline, Community, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, German, Glossary, Instructional Design, Languages, Quick Reference, Show Your Work, Storyline 360, Tables, Visual Design

Simple (and Free!) Animated Timer in Storyline 360

May 10, 2018 By Jackie Van Nice 2 Comments

Select Image to Launch the Animated Timer Demo

Select Image to Launch the Animated Timer Demo

I recently made a game for the Escape the Room ELH Challenge and made a simple animated timer to regulate it. I’m sharing it in the Animated Timer ELH Challenge, too, which is a good place to check out if you’re looking for timer ideas.

It would have saved me a ton of time if I could have started with a ready-made timer like this, so I thought I’d share in case it might help you, too.

Tips to Help You Customize It

  1. Download it: Grab it on its download page.
  2. Unlock the shapes on the timeline: I’ve locked them so they stay aligned, but you can expand the grouped images and unlock them.
  3. Adjust the timing as needed: My need was for a 2-minute timer, so I used a yellow animated circle to represent minute 1 and a red one to represent minute 2. You could use the circles to represent other time periods (e.g. – maybe for a 3-minute timer you would add an orange circle between the yellow and the red to show progress) or whatever fits your needs.

See it in Action!

If you’d like to see how I used this timer in my game interaction, you can see that post and demo here or select the image below.

The Game I Made Using This Timer

The Game I Made Using This Timer

Filed Under: E-Learning Tagged With: Articulate 360, Articulate Storyline, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Free Download, Games, Instructional Design, Show Your Work, Visual Design

Escape Room Game: When Birthday Parties Go Wrong

May 2, 2018 By Jackie Van Nice 17 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s Articulate ELH challenge is to create an escape-room-style game. (Scary!)

Party Equipment

Party Equipment

The Idea

My first escape idea was going to have you desperately trying to catch your international flight before it took off, but the mega-talented Jodi Sansone beat me to it (great minds) and did a lovely job, so it was back to the drawing board. In the end I came up with the idea of frantically trying to make a last-minute birthday cake for a little girl’s birthday party: Let the terror begin.

The Design

Images

My first step was was to build a vector kitchen. As the days went by I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have saved time and energy by building a real kitchen.

The Kitchen Stage

The Kitchen Stage

These are mostly flat design vector images. I pulled a few from the 360 Content Library as icons or illustrations and manipulated their size, shape, and/or color (juicer, grinder, a few objects on the results screen, maybe the measuring cup… it’s all kind of a blur at this point), but I purchased most and manipulated them in Adobe Illustrator. The focus is on the table and mixing bowl in the foreground.

The Game

The Birthday Girl

The Birthday Girl

I wanted three outcomes:

  1. Success: You got the right ingredients in the bowl in the allotted time and achieved the desired result.
  2. Failure: Your time ran out and things didn’t end well.
  3. Keep going and try again: You put an incorrect ingredient in the bowl and have to dump out the bowl and start over, but the timer is still running.

The Timer

Update: I’ve made the timer available as a free download right here! The issue was the timer and finding a way to give it a two-minute duration that I could reliably start, stop, and restart. Very long story short – after trying lots of options I needed to design and build something quickly, so I winged it with an incredibly simple animated timer.

Timer recipe:
  • 1 two-minute-long ticking sound effect
  • 1 timer ding sound effect
  • 1 image of a kitchen timer with a white face
  • 1 inserted yellow circle shape
  • 1 inserted red circle shape

Timer 1Timer 2Timer 3Timer 4

Superimpose the yellow and red circles on the timer face, in that order, and give each one a 59-second wheel entrance animation. Place the red circle so it starts at the 59-second mark on the timeline. The clock and yellow circle start at the beginning of the timeline, along with the ticking sound effect. The ticking will end when you trigger the timer ding to go off at the end of the 2 minutes, at which point you could jump to a layer or another slide or whatever you’d like to do.

Once in action you’ll see the yellow circle animating in for the first minute, turning the face from white to yellow. In the second minute you’ll see it go from yellow to red, letting you know you’d better get that cake in the oven.

In this game the timer helps increase the sense of urgency, looks flat and cute, and serves its purpose.

The Drag-and-Drop

In the end, this was pretty straightforward. There are three items that require a two-step drop process before they can be used successfully, but you’ll find written hints to give you a clue about what to do and every item is labeled if you tap on it. Searching for clues and things you can use is all part of the game!

The Result

Ready to make a cake for the birthday girl? Grab an apron and make it happen!

Select Image to Launch Demo

Select Image to Launch Demo

Filed Under: E-Learning, Front Featured Tagged With: Articulate 360, Articulate Storyline, Community, Drag & Drop, E-Learning Design, ELHChallenge, Emotional Engagement, Free Download, Games, Motivation, Show Your Work, Storyline 360, Visual Design

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Welcome!

I’m an award-winning instructional designer and proud Articulate Super Hero who creates e-learning for large organizations. I blog to explain my design process, share tips and tricks, and help others succeed. I hope you enjoy my refreshing gallery of e-learning goodness!

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