by Kevin Siegel 
Most computer programs offer multiple ways to accomplish any one task. For instance, in Microsoft Word you can make a selected word bold using a menu, a toolbar button, pressing a keyboard shortcut, or by right-clicking the text.
If you're responsible for creating a software simulation that teaches a learner how to make Word text bold, which of the commands are you going to simulate? While you could simulate multiple options, I'd encourage you to focus on just one (adding multiple options is going to take you too long to produce). Personally, I'd simulate the menu option or the toolbar button. However, many people love right-clicking, and I'm betting you'd love to add that option to your eLearning lesson.
You'll be happy to learn that both Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline allow you to easily add right-click functionality to software simulations. If you're using Captivate, show the Properties of a Click Box, and, on the Options tab, select the Right-click check box.
If you're using Storyline, select an object and, on the Triggers panel, create a new Trigger. From the When drop-down menu, choose User right clicks from the list of click events.
While adding a right-click to your eLearning lesson is easy, I'd like to offer a few things to think about before you move forward. First, the Captivate and Storyline forums are littered with frantic posts from developers who cannot get the right-click functionality to work. Developers report that the right-click feature works when the lesson is previewed, but doesn't work when published. It turns out that the right-click feature doesn't usually work when the published lesson is tested locally but is fine when posted and tested via a web server or Learning Management System.
When accessed by your learners, there are instances when the right-click feature simply will not work, or it will be difficult to use. For instance, if you're a Captivate developer you can publish a lesson as a PDF. When the PDF is opened in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, the software captures the right-click and it won't work as you intended when you added it to the simulation.
How about an eLearning lesson that's opened by a Macintosh? While some Mac users will have a mouse that can handle a right-click, others do not support right-clicking at all. (As an alternative to using the mouse to right-click, Mac users can get a right-click menu to appear by pressing [control] when clicking. Nevertheless, some Mac users won't know that keyboard alternative unless you tell them about it.)
If your learners are using a mobile device (such as an iPad), there's no right-click gesture. If your simulation tells an iPad user to right-click to perform a step within your simulation, the iPad user could get stuck.
Lastly, if you are required to provide 508 compliant eLearning for learners with disabilities, right-clicking isn't supported at all. Bottom line: unless it's absolutely necessary for the success of your eLearning simulation, I suggest you pass on using right-click functionality. (Showing a right-click in a software demonstration is fine, but not a simulation.)
What's your take on right-clicking? Do you use it? If not, why not? Feel free to share your opinions here.
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