The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Adobe Captivate: Text Entry Boxes Gain More Options

by Lori Smith

Text Entry Boxes are great. I find them particularly handy when creating an eLearning lesson and you need to simulate the process of typing text within a form field. Text Entry Boxes allow learners to type text just as they would in the actual software.

When setting up a Text Entry Box, you can set the Correct entries by selecting Validate User Input from the General group on the Properties panel and then specifying the terms in the Correct Entries dialog box.

Like I said at the outset, Text Entry Boxes (TEB) are great, but they're not new (they've been around since day 1). If you've used TEB's over the years, you know that they've changed very little even as Captivate has evolved and grown in both features and power.

If you're a long-time TEB fan like me, you'll be delighted to see that with Captivate 7, TEB's have finally been improved a bit. With a TEB selected on a slide, check out the More Options button in the General group of the Properties panel. The options that appear, thanks to this simple button, solve one of the issues that has frustrated me in the past. There is now a check box where you can specify some general restrictions on what a 'correct' entry may be.

For instance, if you choose Numbers, your learner will only be permitted to type numbers within the TEB. Select Lowercase and any characters typed will always appear in lowercase letters. Select Uppercase and any typed text will automatically be put into uppercase letters.

If you have specified either Lowercase or Uppercase and your learner tries to type in a number, the box will not accept it. If you specify a Maximum Length, when the learner tries to enter more than the specified number of characters, an error message appears. And even cooler? You can force the text to automatically be submitted after the specified number of characters by choosing Auto Submit (the learner won't need to press any additional keys on the keyboard or click a Submit button).

I encourage you to play around with the new TEB options. I'm sure you'll find the perfect settings that will allow you to simulate your computer software like never before.

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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.

Warning Mac Adobe Captivate 7 Developers... Don't Upgrade to Mavericks Yet

Apple recently announced the availability of Mavericks, its latest and greatest operating system for the Mac computers.

 

As much as I love new toys, I tend to hold off when it comes to installing software updates. In my experience, you never know what the software update will break; waiting a bit tends to work out when the updates prove problematic. 

 

It turns out that the Mavericks software and Adobe Captivate 7 aren't getting along. Before installing Mavericks, you might want to read this upgrade warning issued recently by Adobe.

Localization: Training & Development in Australia

by Jen Weaver

When we're talking about expanding your global client-base, knowing specific details about the culture, customs, preferences and traditions of your target market can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of your eLearning materials. Even in countries where the primary language is English, such as Australia, there can be many variations in the use of the language. Let's explore some of the common cultural facts about Australians and their expectations when it comes to training and development.

Test your General knowledge of Australian Culture:

1. Christmas falls in what season in Australia?
2. Australians typically prefer which approach to presentations?
   1. Extremely detailed
   2. Brief and to the point
3. English grammar in Australia is:
   1. The same as American English
   2. The same as British English
   3. A mixture of American and British English

Quick Tips For Training & Development in Australia¹:

• While English is the official language, the Australian accent and colloquialisms causes their language to stand apart. Want to throw some meat on the barbie?
• It's common for Australians to shorten words to a single syllable and then add a long "e" at the end. This is how Australians are known as "Aussies."
• Australians are typically driven by facts rather than emotion or personal feelings on the subject. Keep this in mind if your training hinges upon emotional tenets and be prepared to back it up with facts and statistics.
• Personal lives are largely removed from the business setting and are not commonly discussed.
• You may find it difficult to stress the importance of timeliness unless there are clear repercussions.
• Australians tend to prefer modesty over boasting about their accomplishments and tend to value modesty in others. When possible, allow results to speak for themselves rather than discussing past achievements.
• When looking for every-day examples and scenarios, use sports and local sights rather than political or religious examples.
• If training in person, Australian proximity-distance is similar to the United States. Aussies prefer about two feet of distance when conversing, so be mindful of their personal space and don't get close like you would in many Latin American cultures.
• While translation is not necessarily needed for training materials going to Australia, localization of key phrases and images may be beneficial.

Fun-Fact Answers:

1. Summer
2. (b) Brief and to the point.
3. (c) A mixture of American and British English.

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, and Wayne A. Conaway, Kiss, Bow, Or Shake Hands, 2nd ed. (Avon: Adams Media, 2006).

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Developing training & development materials for in-country use? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Adobe Captivate: Emailing Quiz Results

by Lori Smith

Have some of you long-time Captivate developers been wondering what happened to the ability to put a "Send Email" link on your quiz results page? If you were using Captivate 5.5 or earlier, this used to be an option. With Captivate 6 & 7, the Quizzing capability has been enhanced and some things have been changed. Emailing from the results page is one of them. You no longer set this from the Quiz Preferences > Reporting category.

While at first glance it appears that the ability to email quiz results data has been removed, you actually have more options. In fact, I am going to teach you two ways that you can email the quiz results.

The first and simplest way to email quiz results is to choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences > Quiz > Pass or Fail.

From the two Action drop-down menus, select Send email to.

Once the quiz is completed by the learner and they click the Continue button on the Quiz Results slide, their email client will open just as it did in earlier versions of Captivate. If the Quiz Results slide is not used, the email client will open after submission of the last answer.

Note: Although an email opens and is addressed as specified in the Quiz Settings, the subject field is blank and the content is now blank. The learner will have to fill in both areas as necessary.

A second way to send quiz results via email is by using an email widget. While this method provides a little more information in the resulting email, it's a bit more complicated to set up than the first method.

Go to the Quiz Results slide (or the slide you would like the learner to initiate the email). Open the Widget panel (Window menu) and Insert the emailIcon widget.

Fill in the options for the widget. Something like this would make sense:

Name the widget PassEmailWidget by selecting it on the slide and using the Name field on the Properties panel. Also deselect Visible in output so that the widget will initially beinvisible in the output.

Insert the widget again, this time naming it FailedEmailIcon (deselect Visible in output).

All you need to do now is create a little Advanced Action namedShowEmailIcon that looks like this (Project > Advanced Actions):

Lastly, invoke the ShowEmailIcon action on entry to the Quiz Results slide (or whatever slide you have chosen). Select the slide on the Filmstrip and, on the properties panel, set the Action group like this:

Bam! Now the email client will open when the learner clicks the eMail icon, and at least the subject line will be filled in as you like it. Seem like a lot of work? Only the first time around. After that, save this action and these widgets in a template and reuse them on future projects.

Do you have other quizzing conundrums or wishes? Send them to me! We are also thinking about creating a one-day online class dedicated to quizzing with Adobe Captivate. I'd love to hear if there's interest out there.

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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.

MobiLogic: Wanna Read Faster? Try These Apps

by AJ Walther

Have you downloaded iOS7? Do you find reading text-heavy articles on your phone or iDevice to be labor intensive, boring, and/or time consuming? Then you may want to try the new iOS7 app, Velocity. The makers of Velocity claim their app can increase your reading speed from 200 words per minute to 1000 by using the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation technique. You can choose how quickly you'd like to read, but the default is 300 words per minute, which Velocity creators cite as being 50% more words than the average reader can normally take in. Another useful feature of the app calculates how long it will take you to read an article. Velocity isn't the only speed-reading tool on the market using this same technique, however.

Web-Based Apps

Back in September of 2011, I wrote about a web-based speed-reading program called Zap Reader that performs much the same function as Velocity. Zap Reader includes options to adjust the words per minute, number of words shown at a time, font, font size, alignment, and font color. Another web-based option is Spreeder, which performs more or less the same task as Zap Reader but without the option to change the font and with the addition of window height and width controls.

But that's not all...

Other Speed-Reading Apps for iOS

Two other options for iOS are Fastr and ReadQuick. Fastr is a speed-reading app similar to all of the aforementioned options, but it has additional features allowing you to highlight and annotate parts of text, save them, and share them with others via social media. In addition to being accessible on iPhones, iPads, and iPods, it can also be accessed from a desktop computer. ReadQuick is very similar but with Instapaper integration and without annotation tools.

And One for Android

FastReader is available in the Google Play store. It lets you read an article in any browser by sharing its link with FastReader. Text can be copied into the app with the Clipboard function. You can also use the File Explorer to read eBooks (including TXT, ePub files and soon PDF files).

And Even One for Windows Phone

Point Reader developers claim that their app can help people read 33% faster on average and even faster than that with practice. The app syncs with your SkyDrive library for ePub consumption. And, like Velocity, Point Reader calculates how long it will take you to read each chapter or book. The app does not currently work for RSS feeds or articles.

Adobe Captivate & eLearning: Screen Reader Best Practices

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I wrote about some Best Practices for Creating Compliant eLearning. I'd like to follow up that article with information about screen readers.

Screen readers are programs designed to allow visually impaired learners to navigate through a website or eLearning lesson by reading the content aloud.

Two popular screen readers are JAWS (Job Access With Speech) and Window-Eyes. According to Microsoft, "Windows 8 has built-in assistive technologies that work with both Windows 8 applications and with desktop software to provide seamless access to the entire Windows experience."

If you'd like to see a review of some of the top screen readers, Top 10 Reviews has some great information. For instance, there's a section in the article that deals with compatible applications, something that is often overlooked.

According to the article, "This (compatibility) is one category that should not vary (between screen readers) no matter what your vision level is. You want your software to be compatible with the basics of your computer--word processing applications, internet, email, PDF reading--but not all screen readers are. The best ones work well with newer versions of Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel. They also include at least two different internet browser options, usually Internet Explorer and Firefox. A variety of email applications is nice, but at the least the software should work with Outlook and Outlook Express."

Each screen reader uses different methods to translate screen information into speech. As you create eLearning projects in Captivate, you can certainly add accessibility, but you cannot control how a screen reader interprets the accessible components you add to any one lesson. For instance, you cannot force a screen reader to read screen text exactly when you want, or how you want. For that reason, it is best practice to test your projects with multiple screen readers and learn for yourself how each screen reader behaves.

Tips for Testing Screen Reader Compliance

Adobe has invested significant resources into Captivate to ensure the lessons you create have the capability of being compliant. And Adobe offers the following tips for testing your lessons for compliance:

• If you are designing your projects to work with screen readers, download several screen readers. Then test each project by playing it in a browser with the screen reader enabled.
• Ensure that the screen reader is not attempting to "talk over" places in your project where you have inserted separate audio.
• Several screen reader applications provide a demonstration version of the software as a free download. Try as many as you can to ensure compatibility across screen readers.
• If you are creating interactive content, test it and verify that users can navigate your content effectively using only the keyboard. Screen readers work in different ways when processing input from the keyboard. For this reason, your Adobe Captivate content might not receive keystrokes as you intended. Make sure that you test all keyboard shortcuts.

See also: Establishing a screen reader test plan

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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.

Adobe Presenter 9: Beginning Training

Have you created a PowerPoint presentation and need to convert it into an eLearning course? Perhaps you need to add a quiz to the presentation and be able to track learner success?

Adobe Presenter 9 allows you to transform your existing PowerPoint deck into eLearning complete with voiceover recordings, interactive objects, screen characters and videos.

During this full-day, online instructor-led class, you will learn how to create an eLearning lesson from scratch using both Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Presenter. Among other things, you will add characters and scenes to add personality to your presentation.

You will learn how to set up PowerPoint with slide notes that double as your voiceover script. Then you will learn how to record and edit voiceover audio.

As you move through this totally interactive class, you will learn how to add a quiz to the presentation and how to set up the lesson so that it will work with SCORM and AICC-compliant LMSs.

Finally, you will also learn how to publish the finished eLearning content as both SWF and PDF.

More information.

Adobe FrameMaker: Including Chapter Numbers in a Table of Contents

by Barb Binder

I received the following question from one of my Adobe FrameMaker students:

I am making a table of contents (TOC) for my book. When I create the TOC, everything looks fine except I lose the Chapter numbers. For example, the TOC displays "How to cook an egg" instead of "Chapter 1 How to cook an egg." How do I get the same numbers that I use in my individual chapter titles to appear in the TOC?

In FrameMaker, the generated files (i.e., TOC or index) store their structure information on the Reference pages. If you want to use the chapter numbers from the book files, all you need to do is make one quick edit to the TOC reference page within the book's TOC file:

1. Open the table of contents file. In the image below, the three chapter titles are missing their chapter numbers.
   
2. Choose View > Reference pages.
3. Navigate to the TOC reference page.
4. Locate the paragraph that controls the chapter titles. In my book files, I named my titles ChapterTitle. The tag I was looking for was ChapterTitleTOC.
   
   
   
   Note: You can click each building block until you find the tag you need to edit. The tag name will appear in the lower left corner of the status bar.


5. Click in front of the building block and type Chapter <$Chapnum>: followed by a space.
   
   


6. Choose View > Body pages.
7. Save and then Update the book.

FrameMaker reads the new instructions on the reference page, and adds the word Chapter, the chapter number and the punctuation/spacing in front of the original chapter titles.

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Looking to learn FrameMaker? We offer both beginner and advanced FrameMaker training.

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.

Localization: Training & Development in Argentina

by Jen Weaver

In a previous article I discussed the importance of knowing your target market--their culture, customs, and expectations. This week I'll explore the cultural nuances of the Latin American culture, specifically in Argentina.

Test your general knowledge of Argentinean culture with the Fun-Fact questions below.

1. The __________ is the national dance obsession in Argentina.
2. Which type of business attire is most appropriate--especially in the capital, Buenos Aires?
   1. Trendy. Only wear what is up-and-coming.
   2. Conservative. If you want to be taken seriously.
   3. Expressive. Clothing must represent your unique personality.
3. Compared with other South Americans, Argentines have a reputation for:
   1. Seriousness and melancholy.
   2. Joviality and happiness.
   3. Outgoing and outlandish personalities.
4. Spanish is the official language, although many people speak English. Other commonly spoken languages include __________, __________, and __________.

Quick Tips For Training & Development in Argentina¹

• As a culture, Argentines are known to have a high ranking in uncertainty avoidance² which may cause hesitancy to risk or change. It will be helpful to substantiate your perspectives with facts and statistics and allow time for confidence to build in the new initiative.
• Visitors are expected to arrive on time for business meetings; but it is culturally acceptable for Argentine participants to be late, especially if they hold an important title or role. Keep this in mind when scheduling meetings or classes, and clarify if attendance is necessary en punto (on the dot).
• Dinner, typically, does not begin until 10 p.m. on weekdays, so it is common to have coffee and pastries in the early evening (somewhere between 4:00-6:00). Be mindful of this should you hold a training class in the afternoon as this snack break may be expected.
• Strive to maintain eye contact when speaking, and avoid placing your hands on your hips as this could be interpreted as anger.
• Many Argentines have double first names (i.e. Maria Theresa) but may go by Maria, Theresa, or Maria Theresa. Until you are sure which name they use, it is safest to address them by their surnames.

Fun-Fact Answers:

1. Tango
2. (b) Business people should bring a conservative wardrobe to be taken seriously.
3. (a) seriousness and melancholy. To call someone or something "not serious" is a harsh accusation.
4. Italian, German & French

References:

¹Morrison, Terri, and Wayne A. Conaway, Kiss, Bow, Or Shake Hands, 2nd ed. (Avon: Adams Media, 2006).

²One of the cultural dimensions defined by Geert Hofstede.

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Developing training & development materials for in-country use? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.