May 2013 – The Logical Blog

May 29, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Jumping to Named Slides

by Kevin Siegel

You can allow your learners to jump from one slide in your eLearning lesson to any other slide via interactive slide objects. Adding this level of user interaction is commonly referred to as branching.

To create a branch, select an interactive slide object (such as a button or click box) and select Jump to slide from the On Success drop-down menu (via the Action group on the Properties panel). For example, in the image below, the Play Lesson button has been set to Jump to slide 3 in the project.

Jump to a slide by number

While creating branches by jumping to slides based on a slide's number is simple enough, creating multiple branches is likely to get confusing for you as a developer. Since the slide numbers themselves do not offer any clue as to what is happening on any given slide, prior to creating a jump you will need to memorize what is happening on the target slide (or map things out before creating the branches). Instead of jumping to a slide by number, consider naming the destination slide and then jumping to the slide based on its name.

Name a Slide:

Select a slide and visit the Properties panel.
At the top of the Properties panel, type a slide name into the Name field (the name can contain spaces).

In the image below, the same button shown in the first image above is selected. Notice however, that instead of simply jumping to Slide 3, the jump is targeting the third slide, which is named Begin Lesson 1.

Adobe Captivate: Jump to slide by name.

Note: If you'd like to see a demonstration of jumping to named slides, visit the IconLogic YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

May 28, 2013

Free eBook: 68 Tips for eLearning Engagement and Interactivity

eLearning veterans such as Cammy Bean, Sean Bengry, Tom Bunzel,Paul Clothier, Sarah Gilbert, Amy Jokinen,Amy Leis, Susan O'Connell, Erick Summa, Kevin Siegel and Deborah Thomas provide 68 tips for making sure eLearners are fully engaged.

Covered among the tips:

Creating engaging content
Creating an engaging interface
Using interactivity to drive engagement
Using media and visual design effectively
Using games for learning
Measuring engagement and learning

You can download the free eBook here.

May 24, 2013

Localization: Writing for Translation

by Jen Weaver

Have you ever borrowed someone else's notes to try to study for an exam or understand a topic? You probably found that it was more difficult to fully grasp a concept when using someone else's thoughts. You might have spent a great deal of time trying to navigate new abbreviations, note-taking styles and the nuances of the author–and missed a key concept. Translated materials can have the same uncomfortable feel to the Limited English Proficient (LEP) reader when the source document is not written with an LEP audience in mind.

Experienced translation professionals know that sculpting written content into another language is best accomplished with documents written with the understanding that they will eventually be translated into other languages. Here are some tips on creating content ready for translation:

Use numbered or bulleted lists rather than lengthy paragraphs of text.
Avoid using slang. It will not often translate well between languages and will date your materials when used in the future.
Break up lengthy phrases.
Avoid embedding text in graphics when possible. Embedded text requires that the graphics are recreated when translated, resulting in a higher cost. When possible, it's better to place text labels under graphics rather than inside of them.
Limit the use of screen shots unless you want to have those re-created and translated as well.
Try and use location and cultural neutral images. This includes ambiguous ethnicity for people and locales that can relate to many countries or areas.
Leave white space in the English files to allow for text expansion when the file is translated.
Concise, straightforward content is best. Plus, translation is billed per word, so short simple text will also save you money in translation.
If reading level is a concern, keep this in mind when writing the English copy. It is very difficult to translate materials into a different reading level than the source copy.

Following these simple guidelines for translation will allow your LEP audience to focus on the important things you have to say.

***

If you would like to learn best practices for managing translation projects, contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

May 22, 2013

Adobe RoboHelp: Shared Review

by Willam Van Weelden

When creating content within my Help System, I often put my content through a review process. Reviews help to ensure my content is correct and easy to understand.

A recurring question by RoboHelp users is how they can use RoboHelp to gather reviews efficiently. Fortunately, RoboHelp has a review option that allows reviewers who don't own Adobe RoboHelp to review your RoboHelp content. The only thing reviewers need is a PDF of your RoboHelp content, Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader.

Working with shared reviews consists of three stages:

Creating a PDF for review
The review
Importing the reviewer comments into RoboHelp

Create a PDF for Review from Within RoboHelp

In the steps that follow, I will show you how to create a review PDF locally. Saving locally is the easiest way to start a review because you don't have to set up a server or accounts.

Open or create a RoboHelp project.
Choose Review > Create PDF for Review.
In the Create PDF for review dialog box, select any (or all) of the topics, snippets and master pages you want to include in the PDF.
From the PDF Settings area, select Save locally.
Select Enable commenting in Adobe Reader.

(Note: You will only be able to select this option if you have Adobe Acrobat 10 installed on your computer.)

Adobe RoboHelp: Create a PDF for Review

Click OK to create the PDF.

RoboHelp creates the PDF document and opens the document in Acrobat. (If Acrobat notifies you that it will enable commenting, click OK and save the document.)

The PDF is now ready for review. You can now send the PDF to all of your reviewers.

Important: After you create the PDF, don't edit the RoboHelp topics, snippets and master pages that are included in the PDF. The only way you can reliably import comments back into the RoboHelp project is when the content remains unchanged.

Reviewing

Reviewers can review your content using Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader. Using the Annotation tools, reviewers can add comments, remove text, insert text and replace text. When the review is finished, the reviewer simply sends the annotated PDF back to you.

Import Review Comments

Once you receive the review PDF, you can import the comments and changes suggested within the PDF directly into the RoboHelp project.

Open the reviewed RoboHelp project.
Choose Review > Import Comments from PDF.
Click Yes from within the Import comments from PDF dialog box and then open the reviewer's PDF.

Once the import is complete, RoboHelp displays the comments, inserts and deletions similar to the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word.

At this point, you can use a Review toolbar to accept or reject suggested changes within your project.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

May 21, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Repurpose Preferences

by Kevin Siegel

Have you ever visited the Preferences dialog box in Adobe Captivate (Windows users, Edit > Preferences; Mac users, Adobe Captivate > Preferences), made several changes and later, maybe months later, needed those settings on another computer running Captivate? I'm betting your answer is yes, and you've had a tough time ensuring the Preferences in one project match those in another.

When I teach Adobe Captivate, I try to stress the value of creating a project template (and creating templates from scratch is a big part of my Captivate 6 Advanced class). If you set the Preferences within a Captivate template and then use the template when you create new projects, the Preferences will match from one project to the next. However, you can create perfectly nice Captivate projects without a template. In that case, understanding how get Preferences from one project into another is useful.

For instance, in the images below, I accessed the Preferences dialog box and set the Preferences on some of the screens.

In the Project Information area, I added information about the Author (Biff, as usual, gets all the credit around here), Company name, Project Name and the Description.

In the SWF Size and Quality area, I set the quality to Medium.

From the Project Start and End area, I added the company logo as the Preloader, set the Preloader % to 50, enabled Fade In on the First Slide, and set the Project End Options.

I also visited the Publish Settings and changed the Frames Per Second to 20 (30 is the default) and disabled both Enable Accessibility and Play tap audio for recorded typing.

Setting each of the Preferences above wasn't difficult. In fact, it took perhaps 2-3 minutes to set everything. However, since having to memorize all of the settings isn't something I look forward to on a project-by-project basis, the ability to export this project's Preferences is going to be quite nice.

Export Project Preferences

Open a Captivate project and set your Preferences.
Choose File > Export > Preferences to open the Save As dialog box.
Pick a save destination for the Preferences file and, in the File Name field, give the file a name. (Note: The Preferences are exported as a .cpr file.)
Click Save.

Import Project Preferences

Open another Captivate project (or create a new project).
Choose File > Import > Preferences.
Locate and open the .cpr file you exported.

After the import process, browse the Preferences in the project. You'll notice that most (but not all) of the Preferences exported from the first project have been imported into the current project.

Note: If you'd like to see the process of working with a project's Preferences, check out my video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month includingIntroduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

May 16, 2013

Writing & Grammar: Nauseated by Nauseous

by Jennie Ruby

Just as software experts have to keep up to date with the latest versions of software, professional writers and editors have to keep up with the latest versions of English. Our language gains new nouns and verbs constantly, and our existing words change meanings. Old rules of usage fall out of fashion or are debunked by the latest scholars, and common errors our school teachers pounded into our heads may have become accepted as correct over time.

Here is a pair of words that have been undergoing some of these changes:

nauseated
nauseous

In Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, originally copyrighted in 1935, with the fourth edition copyrighted in 2000, the writers flat out state that nauseous means "sickening to contemplate" and nauseated means "sick at the stomach." I personally have followed that distinction for as long as I can remember. In this view, if you say "I'm nauseous," you are saying you make people sick. I followed that view until today, when I did the research for this article!

That hard line was changing, even in the year 2000. In Bryan Garner's Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, published in 2000, he says that the I feel nauseous usage is so common that "to call it an 'error' is to exaggerate." Nevertheless, he says that "careful writers" still follow the traditional distinction.

In 2003, The Chicago Manual of Style (15^th edition) said that even though the use of nauseous to mean you feel sick may no longer be an error, it is still bad usage. But their actual recommendation? Sidestep the entire nauseous issue and use "I feel nauseated" for feeling sick and "that smell is nauseating" for something that seems illness-inducing. Just never use nauseous, they said, just to be safe. And if you are surrounded by grammar sticklers, that advice still holds: you will always be safe with nauseated and nauseating.

But what is the best thinking on this today? The Merriam Webster dictionary online flat out states that "I feel nauseous" is the most frequent and acceptable usage, and they actually go on to say that those who insist that it is an error are "mistaken"!

The Free Dictionary online took a poll of its panelists and determined that most use nauseous as meaning you feel sick and nauseating as meaning sickening to look at.http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nauseous.

So, the [trending] bottom line is this: Don't use nauseated. Use nauseous to mean to feel sick and nauseating to mean sickening to look at.

The Nauseating [or is it Nauseous?] Challenge

Use the latest usage, not the traditionalist usage, to complete these sentences with some version of the word nausea. Trick question: one of these might not use the word nausea at all!

She found the car ride through the mountains to be ___________________.

When she got out of the car at the scenic overlook, she felt completely __________________.

When we opened the dumpster, the odor was _________________.

When the professionals were cleaning the fish on the beach, the vacationers found the sight _________________.

The view from the top of the cliff was ___________________.

I felt ___________________ after seeing that Man Versus Food episode.

The kids said they felt ____________ after walking through the room with the gas leak.

When you are ready, add your answers as comments below.

***

Results of the Training and Computer Terms Challenge

Here is a table presenting the results of the challenge. We have great consensus about eLearning and website, but many of our technical terms have still not settled into a common usage. Many of you indicated that you have no real reasons for your choices, and that is par for the course in technical terminology. It is largely personal preference until a consensus starts growing around one particular way of naming a concept. Cheryl Dennis pointed out what many of us are doing is following our own office policy, at least until the major dictionaries agree upon a term. And Karla Marsh pointed out another reality: we follow our own style until we are overridden by our customers' styles!

Many of you did note that computer-based training or CBT is an older term, but one that we cannot seem to leave behind. And at least one respondent admitted that lowercasing the word Internet is born of laziness-but I might add, that laziness may eventually add up to a consensus! My thanks to Mary Welby von Thelen for her kind comments as well.

eLearning	87%
website	87%
mLearning	73%
email	67%
the Internet	67%
HTML	67%
web page	60%
computer-based training	40%
internet	27%
e-mail	20%
Email	20%
e-learning	20%
m-learning	20%
Web site	20%
html	20%
Web page	13%
E-learning	7%

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

May 15, 2013

eLearning: What’s My Motivation?

by AJ Walther

Motivating a dog is easy. There is absolutely nothing my dog won't do for a treat. But motivating a human? Particularly an adult human? That's a complex process. If something (like, say, training) doesn't have an immediate payoff, how do we motivate adults to participate? If we want them to participate in their free time, are we looking at an insurmountable task?

I recently ran across an article on the CommLab India blog by Aruna Vayuvegula on Motivational Factors to Consider in eLearning and LMS Design. Vayuvegula referenced a paper called Worker Motivation in Crowdsourcing by Nicolas Kaufmann, Thimo Schulze, and Daniel Viet. I don't want to reinvent the wheel too much here by rehashing the parallels Vayuvegula pulled from the crowdsourcing study to apply to eLearning, but both the blog post and the study are pretty good reads if you'd like to dive in a bit further. What I did want to share, however, is a chart from the study outlining workers' motivations in crowdsourcing. (You can click the image to see a larger view.)

Used with permission from Kaufmann et al. (2011), Worker Motivation in Crowdsourcing

The motivational factors post by Vayuvegula goes so far as to give examples of how to tweak eLearning to apply to the different intrinsic and extrinsic motivators listed above. It also inspired me to look into what others in the eLearning field had to say about learning motivation. In doing so, I found a great post from Connie Malamed from a few years ago on Motivating the Instructional Designer (hey, sometimes we're the ones who need the motivation!) Are you tasked with motivating adults in your learning? What's your secret?

Here are some of my own previous articles on motivation:

***

Looking to improve the look of your PowerPoint presentations (and avoid the dreaded "death by PowerPoint" phenomena)? Check out AJ's Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations class.

May 14, 2013

Adobe Captivate & RoboHelp: Incorporate eLearning within a Help System

by Kevin Siegel

Like many of today's technical communicators, I wear many hats and use multiple tools to communicate with my learners. For instance, I use Adobe Captivate to create most of my eLearning content, and Adobe RoboHelp to create my Help Systems.

It wasn't all that long ago that eLearning content and Help Systems served different roles and different audiences. There was rarely talk of combining the two technologies. These days, more and more technical communicators are being tasked with creating effective Help Systems for an audience that is more distracted and stressed out than ever before. It's a daunting task, but one that is made easier if you follow a few best practices.

If you have created an eLearning lesson using eLearning tools such as Adobe Captivate, TechSmith's Camtasia Studio or Articulate's Storyline, you can insert the multimedia directly into RoboHelp Help Topics. When the topic is displayed in a web browser, mobile device (iPad, iPhone, etc) or HTML Help, the lesson will play (and remain interactive).

The Perfect Help Topic

When creating help content (Help Topics), I suggest that the topic contain just enough information to make it easy for a learner to quickly find the information they are looking for. Specifically, today's perfect Help Topic will:

Contain no more than one or two paragraphs to explain the most important concepts of a feature.
Contain an image or eLearning simulation/demonstration to support the text.
Treat users as learners… not users. (As far as I'm concerned, a Help System is really just an opportunity for the author to teach something.)

eLearning Best Practices

The perfect playtime for a typical eLearning lesson is 5 minutes (give or take a few minutes). However, if the lesson is expected to be included within a RoboHelp topic, the person who will view the lesson is looking for specific information, not necessarily a complete lesson. I'd encourage you to keep eLearning within a Help Topic much shorter than standard eLearning lessons; 30-90 seconds is the perfect amount of time to get a quick point across.

When creating content within Adobe Captivate, avoid using Captivate features that are not supported by mobile devices (such as Flash animations or rollovers). Prior to publishing a lesson, choose Project > HTML5 Tracker to open the HTML5 Tracker (shown below). If the HTML5 Tracker displays any Unsupported objects, consider visiting the affected slides and removing those objects.

Adobe Captivate: HTML5 Tracker

Choose Project > Skin Editor and edit the lesson's playbar so that it doesn't contain features that might cause problems within a Help Topic. For instance, in the image below, I've specifically deselected the Close option (lower left). I've found that if I embed a Captivate demo within a topic, the Close button on the Playbar doesn't work and will simply lead to learner confusion.

Adobe Captivate: Playbar Options

When publishing, take the learner's device into consideration. If the learner is going to use a standard Windows PC or Macintosh computer, SWF output is fine. However, if your learner is going to be using an Apple mobile device such as an iPad or iPhone, you'll need to select HTML5 from the Output Format Options area. You'll end up publishing two distinct output formats, but both can be imported into RoboHelp (at the same time).

Adobe Captivate: Publish as SWF and HTML5.

eLearning Integration within RoboHelp

Once you've published the Captivate lesson, getting it into a RoboHelp topic is simple. Open or create a topic and choose Import > Adobe Captivate Demo. From within the Adobe Captivate Demo dialog box, use the Browse button to the right of Multimedia Name and open the SWF; use the Browse button to the right of HTML5 Output and open the HTML5 start page.

Adobe RoboHelp: Importing Both SWF and HTML5.

When you generate WebHelp or HTML Help, RoboHelp will automatically use the SWF within the generated Help System. If you generate Multiscreen HTML5, RoboHelp will automatically use the HTML5 output for all of the screen layouts (although you can edit the Properties of the Desktop layout and force it to use the SWF output instead).

Note: If you'd like to see the process of embedding interactive eLearning within a Help System, check out my video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate. And if you're looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp, we offer a two-day introduction to RoboHelp class.

May 10, 2013

Writing & Grammar: Stylistic Conventions

by Jennie Ruby

Many words in the computer training industry have different stylistic conventions depending on your office preference or on the style guide you use. In this challenge, indicate your preferred treatment of these terms (you can post your answers as comments below):

email/e-mail

e-learning/e-Learning/E-Learning/ eLearning

m-learning/mLearning

website/Web site

Web page/web page

computer-based training/eLearning/asynchronous training using technology

the internet/the Internet (actually, most of the industry does capitalize that one)

HTML/html

Answers to Last Week's Mouse Move Challenge

Answers this week are brought to you by Tara Aukerman. Additional responses after the slash marks are provided by Clay Walnum and Ann Whitfield. Jane Edwards also adds this mouse move, which you can use for putting a folder or file name into editing mode: Southern double-click: Click once, pause, then slowly click again.

Press and release the left mouse button
— Click
Press and release the right mouse button
— Right-click
Roll the wheel on top of the mouse
— Scroll (up/down – never just "scroll to")/Use the mouse wheel
Quickly press and release the mouse button twice
— Double-click
Quickly press and release the mouse button three times
— Triple-click (but since this is uncommon, a parenthetical note like: "Click three times quickly")
Hold the mouse button down and move it from one point to another
— Click and drag (or just drag)
Put the mouse pointer over an item but do not click
— Roll over (for non-computer-saavy folks) or Hover (for computer saavy folks)/Rest the mouse pointer
Drag the mouse across text so that the text background changes color and you can then format or delete that text
— Select (because often users will double-click to highlight a word or triple-click to highlight a sentence) or Highlight
Use the highlighter tool to color the background of text
— Select the text and click
Hold down the shift button and click the left mouse button
–Press and hold the SHIFT key and click on XYZ (not a common problem for our audience so we've learned that anything else isn't specific enough)./SHIFT-click

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

May 9, 2013

Adobe RoboHelp: Supporting Android Phones

by Willam Van Weelden

RoboHelp 10 allows you to support a wide range of devices. RoboHelp detects a user's device and automatically presents the content in the optimal format for that specific device. While this is a great new RoboHelp feature, sometimes things can go wrong.

For example, last week a client reported that his RoboHelp content was displaying correctly across all devices except his Samsung Galaxy SIII. Instead of using the Android layout as instructed, the device consistently used the Desktop layout.

The phone's default display resolution is very high. It is so high, in fact, RoboHelp failed to recognize the device as a phone. The solution to this problem is simple: increase the maximum screen resolution via the Android_Phone Screen Profile. Here's how:

With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod (View > Pods).
Open Screen Profiles.
Double-click Android_Phone to open its Screen Profile.
Set the Maximum width to 1000 pixels.
Set the Maximum height to 1280 pixels.
Click the Save button and then close the dialog box.
Save the project and then Generate the Multiscreen HTML5 layout.
The next time the layout is accessed by an Android phone, it will use the correct layout.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.