Online Training – Page 3 – The Logical Blog

October 10, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Best Practices for Creating Compliant eLearning

by Kevin Siegel

A few years ago I was in Canada teaching Captivate for a large Toronto-based company. We were just getting ready to cover the accessible features found in Captivate when I was informed that I could skip the section because Canadians were not required to create accessible content.

Fast forward to a recent online Advanced Captivate class that included students from South America, Australia, and Canada.In speaking about accessibility with the class, it became apparent not only does the Canadian government now require compliant eLearning, but according to the Canadian students in class, the rules in Canada are often more stringent than those in the United States. I was also happy to learn that other counties, such as Australia, are also addressing accessibility when it comes to eLearning.

If compliant eLearning is a requirement for you, I would encourage you to review your local laws to familiarize yourself with as much information as possible. If you work in the United States, or create eLearning content for a U.S. company, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Section 508 compliance online. If you are working with Canadian companies, you should familiarize yourself with the Canadian compliance laws. (Note: The Section 508 website may be down due to the U.S. Govt. shutdown. If so, you'll need to try accessing the site once the shutdown is over.)

What Does Captivate do to be Section 508 Compliant?

Selecting the Enable Accessibility option (Edit > Preferences > Publishing) makes certain elements in Adobe Captivate projects accessible or open to accessibility technology. For example, if you select the Enable Accessibility option and you have filled in the project name and project description text boxes in Project preferences, a screen reader will read the name and description when the Adobe Captivate SWF file is played.

The following Adobe Captivate elements are accessible when Enable Accessibility is selected:

Project name (derived from Project Properties)
Project description (derived from Project Properties)
Slide accessibility text
Slide label (derived from Slide Properties)
Buttons
Playback controls (The function of each button is read by screen readers)
Password protection (If an Adobe Captivate SWF file is password protected, the prompt for a password is read by screen readers)
Question slides (Title, question, answers, button text, and scoring report are read by screen readers)

Output generated with the Section 508 option is displayed by all supported browsers. However, your output may not be Section 508-compliant unless it is viewed with Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is the only browser with support for MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility).

Note: To access Flash files using a screen reader, users must have Flash Player 9 or later installed.

Tips for Creating 508-compliant Adobe Captivate SWF Files

While Adobe Captivate Section 508 output is compliant for navigation, make sure that other elements are also compliant in your project. Assistive software must be able to "read" elements on the screen to visually impaired users. Use these tips to design accessible projects.

In the Project preferences, write a meaningful name and description for your Adobe Captivate projects.
For users with hearing impairment, add text equivalents for audio elements. For example, when delivering narrative audio, it is important to provide captions at the same time. One option is to place a transparent caption in a fixed location on slides, then synchronize the text with the audio using the Timeline.
If your project contains visual multimedia, provide information about the multimedia for users with visual impairment. If a name and description are given for visual elements, Adobe Captivate can send the information to the user through the screen reader. Make sure that audio in your Adobe Captivate projects does not prevent users from hearing the screen reader.
Supply text for individual slides that screen readers can read.
Ensure that color is not the only means of conveying information. For example, if you use blue to indicate active links, also use bold, italics, underlining, or some other visual clue. In addition, make sure that foreground and background contrast sufficiently to make text readable by people with low vision or color blindness.
For users with either visual or mobility impairment, ensure that controls are device independent or accessible by keyboard.
Users with cognitive impairments often respond best to uncluttered design that is easily navigable.
If mouse movement is critical in your Adobe Captivate project, consider making the pointer twice its normal size for easier viewing.
Document methods of accessibility for users.
Avoid looping objects. When a screen reader encounters content meant for Flash Player, the screen reader notifies the user with audio, such as "Loading….load done." As content in a project changes, Flash Player sends an event to the screen reader notifying it of a change. In response, the screen reader returns to the top of the page and begins reading again. Therefore, a looping text animation on a slide, for example, can cause the screen reader to continually return to the top of the page.
If you are creating click boxes, you can make them more accessible by adding sound. The sound can play when users tab to the click box or hover over it. To add this accessibility feature, attach a sound file to the hint caption. (If you do not want the hint caption to appear on the slide, you can make the caption transparent and add no text.)
Accessibility in Adobe Captivate works better when all the slides have interactive content.

Source: Adobe, Creating Accessible Projects

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 25, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Pretest Actions

by Lori Smith

We recently introduced you to Captivate's Pretest feature. In this article, I'm going to follow-up with Pretests and teach you how to control a Pretest Advanced Action. Here's the scenario: your client or boss wants to ensure that all the learners know the material by passing a quiz. The boss doesn't care if the learner spends the time watching the individual slides that make up the lesson, only that learners are given a fair opportunity to pass the quiz.

You move forward and design an eLearning lesson that contains an introductory slide (slide 1), some pretest questions (slides 2 through 5), eLearning content slides (slides 6 through 50) and a final quiz (beginning on slide 51). If the learner is able to pass the Pretest right out of the gate, then you will not require the learner to review the course content. Instead, you will allow the learner to jump straight to the final quiz. However, if the learner fails the Pretest, the learner will be required to move through the course content before taking the final quiz.

While the scenario above sounds complicated to implement within Captivate, there is an action built within the Pretest that will get you started. Select any Pretest slide on the Filmstrip and take a look at the Action group on the Quiz Properties panel. Just below the Failure Levels drop-down menu you'll see an Edit Pretest Action button.

Edit Pretest Action button

Clicking the Edit Pretest Action button will open the Advanced Action window containing a basic advanced action.

Standard IF statement.

Let's take a look at what the action does. In the IF area, a System Variable named cpInfoQuizPretestScorePercentageis being checked to see if the learner's score is greater than 50. This means that if the learner gets over half of the points allocated in the pretest, he or she passes the pretest.

Take a look in the success and failure areas. Both are sending the learner to the very next slide (using the Go to Next Slideoption).

Standard Else statement.

In the images below, I have edited the Action so that it will use the Jump to Slide option. Should the learner score higher than 50, the Action will jump the learner directly to slide 51 (the quiz). Should the learner score 50 or lower, the ELSE segment of the Action sends the learner to the first content slide for the lesson (slide 6).

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 19, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Align the Mouse

by Kevin Siegel

If you have recorded a software demonstration using Adobe Captivate, you have likely run across the issue of the dreaded "jittery mouse."

Here's the scenario: you are working on a project with several slides. On slide 5, the mouse is moving from point A to point B. On slide 6, the mouse has clearly gotten to point B.

Back on slide 5, you decide to move the mouse position (you can easily drag the mouse anywhere you want on the slide). And that's when the "jittery mouse" will bite you.

On slide 6 of the project, you'll notice that the mouse is no longer in the correct slide position because you moved the mouse on slide 5. If you were to play the project (previewing 5 slides is ideal for this kind of test), you would clearly see the mouse "jump" from its new position on slide 5 to its old position on slide 6. In fact, the jump looks almost as if the mouse pointer on slide 6 received some kind of jolt.

To fix the problem, you could go to slide 6 and attempt to manually drag the mouse pointer into the same position that you established on slide 5. But this solution isn't ideal because the mouse position has to be identical to the position on the previous slide. It will probably take several attempts to get it right. What's a developer to do?

Go to slide 6 (this is where the mouse pointer is not in the desired slide position)
Select the mouse pointer and choose Modify > Mouse > Align to Previous Slide.

Bam! This is the perfect cure for the jittery mouse.

Note: You could have also gone to slide 5, right-clicked the mouse pointer and selected Align to Next Slide (or selected the command via Modify > Mouse).

If you would like to see a demonstration of aligning the mouse pointer with previous or next slides, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 10, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Two-Bits for the Best Rate

by Kevin Siegel

You can easily record audio from within Captivate by choosing Audio > Record to. You can record audio directly to slide objects, a single slide, multiple slides, or the project background. Regardless of your choice, you'll find yourself in the Slide Audio dialog box.

After clicking the Device link in the Audio dialog box, the Audio Settings dialog box will open. This is where you have to make an important decision about your bitrate.

Captivate 5 bitrates

You have two choices in the Bitrate drop-down menu: Constant and Variable. Constant Bitrates (CBRs) produce smaller file sizes. By contrast, Variable Bitrates (VBRs) tend to produce audio with a higher, more consistent quality level than CBRs, but the VBR file sizes will be larger than CBRs. For that reason, most Captivate developers stick with Constant Bitrate.

Then you have to select from one of the four bitrate settings: CD, Near CD, Custom or FM. So many decisions… so little time. Bitrate is defined as the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. Using a higher bitrate setting, such as CD Bitrate (128 kbps), will result in higher quality audio but a larger published lesson.

If you decide to use a higher quality bitrate than FM Bitrate, you should spend time experimenting with the options to see which selection sounds best to you. As a general rule, the FM Bitrate is more than adequate for eLearning audio that will be played through typical computer speakers or headsets.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 9, 2013

eLearning & Design: Want to be a Better Designer? Play this Font Game

by AJ Walther

Did you enjoy playing the color game from my previous article? Did it make you the best designer ever? Almost? If so, don't you dare stop there! Now it's time to focus on fonts!

Last week I was having a blog designed for my personal use. My designer sent over three header samples in three different fonts. I obnoxiously responded with, "These are great, but I'd really like to combine the round punctuation of Option One with the character width in Option Two and the line weight of Option Three. Know any fonts that meet this criteria?" My designer was not amused and more or less put the task back in my lap. I was soon perusing thousands of fonts and attempting Google searches like, "tall, skinny font with round punctuation and lowered middle 'E' bar" with no success.

eLearning: The Font Game

In my font search I did eventually find what I deemed to be a suitable font selection, but I also ran across The Font Game from I Love Typography which, if nothing else, served as a fun distraction. But beyond being a fun distraction, the game became a bit more. The more I played the better I got at quickly identifying fonts by sight and name. Being able to eye-ball subtle differences in fonts (as well as becoming familiar with naming conventions) ended up helping me more quickly scout fonts to get to what I wanted for my own design purposes.

The Font Game is an iOS app for iPhones and iPads. In this timed game, you are presented with a font sample and asked to choose the name from four options. High scores can be added to Apple's Game Center. In addition to the Font Game, the app includes the Terminology Game (for learning typography lingo), The Flip Font Game (like the original font game but reversed–you're given the name of the font and choose the correct one from four samples), and the Match Game (like the memory game, but with fonts). The app isn't free, but if you're a design junkie (or aim to be one), $2 may not seem like an unfair investment to you.

Do you love The Font Game? Do you hate it? Do you have an alternate method for learning fonts? I'd love to hear from you.

August 22, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Drag and Drop Interactions

by Kevin Siegel

If you have always wanted to add drag and drop interactions within a Captivate project, but felt the technique was beyond your ability, think again. Adobe Captivate 7 not only allows you to add this kind of behavior, it's remarkably fast and easy (no programming required… I promise).

In the image below, I've created a Captivate slide with four Smart Shapes. My goal is to allow learners to drag the similar shapes on top of one another. If they succeed, they'll "pass." If not, they'll get a failure message. The darker shapes on the slide will each be a source; the lighter shapes will be targets. If you'd like to follow along, go ahead and create a similar slide (it shouldn't take more than a minute or so).

Adobe Captivate: Slide with Smart Shapes

To add the drag and drop interaction, choose Insert > Launch Drag and Drop Interaction Wizard.

Select each source object on the slide (one at a time) and click the plus sign to the right of the Add To Type drop-down menu. Give each source object a name and then click the OK button. When you are done naming the source objects, click the Next button to move to Step 2.

Adobe Captivate: Creating Sources to be dragged.

Step 2 of the wizard will require you to select and name the target objects. I created two targets (the lighter shapes shown in the first image above). After that, click the Next button to move to the last step.

Adobe Captivate: Creating drag targets.

The final step is to drag the source objects to the target objects (you can see me doing just that in the image below).

Adobe Captivate: Dragging one object over another

After clicking the Finish button, you're… well, finished. Preview the project and you'll be able to drag the source objects to the target objects. As I promised above, you didn't have to create a single line of code to get this to work… how cool is that?

If you would like to see a demonstration of Captivate's Drag and Drop feature, check out the video I posted to the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

August 13, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Grids ‘n Guides

by Kevin Siegel

When it comes to positioning items on a slide, you can always visit the Transform group on the Properties panel and control such object attributes as the location of a slide object, its size, and rotation.

However, if you prefer to control an object's slide placement without using the Transform panel, Adobe Captivate comes with a few other handy features that are often overlooked: Grids and Guides.

If you select the View menu you'll see four options of note: Show Grid, Snap to Grid, Snap to Object, and Show Drawing/Smart Guides.

Adobe Captivate: View menu

If you select Show Grid, little dots will appear on every slide. The dots, which are visual reference points for you to use on the slide, will not display in a published lesson. Using the grid, you can ensure objects are a specific distance from the top, bottom, left, or right of a slide. If you select Snap to Grid, an object will automatically snap to the little dots as you drag the object around the slide.

Adobe Captivate: Grids

By choosing Show Drawing/Smart Guides, you will see Smart Guides (green dashed lines) when you reposition, resize, or rotate an object. By using Smart Guides, which are enabled by default, you will be able to align objects with other nearby objects.

Adobe Captivate: Smart Guides

Note: Smart Guides do not appear when you try to reposition or resize objects using keyboard nudge controls. If you don't see the Smart Guides as you drag objects around the slide, try zooming closer to the slide (I've found that this often makes it easier to see and use the Smart Guides).

If you would like to see a demonstration of Grids and Smart Guides, check out this video on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

August 6, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Fastest Cleaned Prefs in the West

by Kevin Siegel

Adobe Captivate, like most computer programs, can behave poorly. I've found that when Captivate gets sluggish on my computer or crashes, it's because I've got too many applications running and not enough resources. In that instance, closing all non-essential applications solves the problem.

However, there are times when nothing I do seems to help improve Captivate's performance (not even a system reboot). In those rare instances, I've found that resetting all of Captivate's Preferences cures what ails Captivate. One way to reset the Preferences would be to find Captivate's Preferences file on your computer, throw it away, and then restart Captivate (which creates a new Preferences file). The problem is that the Preferences file is buried within your user credentials folder and is often hard to find.

If you need to reset Captivate's Preferences, you'll appreciate an obscure utility that ships with Captivate that will reset all of the Preferences for you.

Navigate to the folder where Captivate is installed on your computer and open the utils folder.

Adobe Captivate: Clean Preferences

You'll find two files of particular interest: CleanPreferencesMac and CleanPreferencesWin. Simply double-click the file appropriate for your operating system and BAM!… all of Captivate's application Preferences will be reset to the way they were the first day Captivate was installed on your computer.

For instance, in the image below I "accidentally" disabled all of my Confirmation Messages in Captivate.

Adobe Captivate: Confirmation Messages disabled.

Don't be jealous, but it's a well-established fact that I am the fastest clicker in the West (or the East for that matter). I could have enabled all of the Confirmation Messages in, what, 3.2 seconds. But by double-clicking CleanPreferencesWin, all of the dialog boxes were instantly reset. I'm fast, but I'm not that fast.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

July 25, 2013

Adobe Captivate: A Great GIFT

by Kevin Siegel

When it comes to adding question slides to a Captivate project, you can always visit the Quiz menu and choose Question Slide. You'll be presented with the Insert Questions dialog box giving you access to several types of questions you can add including Multiple Choice, True/False and Matching. Once the questions have been added to your project, the next step is to edit the questions and answers.

If you need to add a large number of question slides to a project, creating the quiz is going to take a significant amount of time. There is a better way to go, especially if a Subject Matter Expert who does not own Adobe Captivate is going to create the quiz: GIFT files.

GIFT stands for General Import Format Technology. You can create a GIFT file in plain text using a simple word processor (like Notepad or TextEdit), and then import the file into Adobe Captivate.

In the image below, I've created a GIFT file in NotePad that will result in one multiple choice question.

Adobe Captivate: An example of a GIFT file.

The syntax is simple. The Question Title goes between the colons (::Multiple Choice::). Next comes the question itself. The answers are contained within the {}. The correct answer is preceded by an equal sign (=); the incorrect answers are preceded by a tilde (~).

Once the GIFT file has been created, importing it into Captivate is beyond simple. Choose Quiz > Import GIFT Format File and open the GIFT file. In the image below, you can see the imported Multiple Choice question based on the GIFT file above.

Adobe Captivate: A question that was imported from a GIFT file.

All that would be left to do would be to format the question as you would any slide or apply a Theme.

If you would like to see how the GIFT feature works, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

July 9, 2013

Adobe Captivate 7: Support for the Tin Can API

by Kevin Siegel

Today's learners are consuming eLearning content using a vast array of devices (PCs, Macs, and mobile devices such as the iPad). And learners are working outside of traditional LMSs. In spite of these challenges, educators still need to capture reliable data about the learner experience.

The problem with data collection is that you need an expensive LMS to store the data. And your learners need live access to the LMS so that they can send the data.

The most widely-used LMS standard for capturing data is the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). SCORM allows educators to track such things as learner completion of a course, pass/fail rates, and how long a learner took to complete a lesson or course. But what if a trainer needs to get scores from learners who are collaborating with other students using social media? What if the learners don't have access to the Internet?

The new Tin Can API allows training professionals to gather detailed data about the learner experience as the learner moves through an eLearning course (either online or offline). According to the Tin Can API website, "The Tin Can API (sometimes known as the Experience API) captures data in a consistent format about a person or group's activities from many technologies. Very different systems are able to securely communicate by capturing and sharing this stream of activities using Tin Can's simple vocabulary."

Officials at the Tin Can API website went on to say, "Mobile learning, simulations, virtual worlds, serious games, real-world activities, experiential learning, social learning, offline learning, and collaborative learning are just some of the things that can now be recognized and communicated well with the Tin Can API."

If the Tin Can API is supported by your Learning Management System (LMS), you'll be happy to learn that it's also fully supported in Adobe Captivate 7. All you need to do is choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the Reporting group, select Enable reporting for this project.

From the LMS drop down menu, choose Other Standard LMSs. Lastly, from the Standard drop-down menu, choose TinCan.

Adobe Captivate: Tin Can API as the Standard.

When publishing the lesson, ensure that you select the Zip option, and then upload the lesson to an LMS that supports the Tin Can API.

Note: Tin Can support is also available in Articulate Storyline. All you need to do is publish the lesson and, from the LMS group, Output Options, select Tin Can API from the LMS drop-down menu. If you'd like to read more about the Tin Can API, check out the Tin Can API overview on the Tin Cap API website. You'll also find useful information on Wikipedia.

If you would like to see a demonstration of enabling Tin Can within Captivate 7, check out this video on the IconLogic YouTube channel.