The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Articulate Storyline: Recolor Art

by Sally Cox  

 

One of my favorite hidden gems in Storyline 2 is an obscure feature called Recolor Art. It allows you to alter the color of an object within Storyline-not affecting the original art, but merely "recoloring" it within the project.

 

In my workflow as an Instructional Designer, I create my own artwork in Adobe Illustrator and export as transparent PNGs. This works out nicely, but there are times when I need to create rollovers from icons or buttons. I want to avoid returning to Illustrator to create separate versions. Enter "Recolor Art."

 

In the image below there are a few examples of icons you might use in your eLearning project. I'll demonstrate how to use Storyline's Recolor Art feature to alter the Hover state, creating a rollover.

 

 

To begin, select your artwork (remember, transparent PNGs work best) and open the States panel by selecting the word "States" at the bottom of the Storyline window.

 

 

Click Edit States, click New State, choose Hover from the drop-down menu, and then click Add.

 

 

You've created the Hover state; now you'll alter the appearance. With the Hover state still open, select the object on your slide. Then right-click and choose Format Picture.

 

 

Choose Picture from the menu at the left and then click the arrow next to Preset.

 

 

You'll find a number of options for recoloring your art, and you'll see the categories listed above the icons. No Recolor means you see your original image. Color Modes and Dark Variations are the ones that give the best result, for me. Experiment with Brightness, Contrast, and Transparency for different effects.

 

These are limiting however, so if you want more, go to Blend.

 

Choose a Color from the Blend section and apply a Blend Mode. These behave just like Photoshop Blend Modes and give you a variety of effects based on the color you choose.

 

 

If you don't like what you've done, you can click Reset Picture, or use Storyline's Undo command.

 

When you're done with Recolor, click Close. Lastly, and most importantly, click Done Editing States in the States panel to save the changes.

 

Here are examples of before (left) and after (right) applying the Recolor feature to an icon. It can always be removed later, and edited as needed. Any way you cut it, it's a real timesaver!

 

 

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Looking for training on Articulate Storyline? Check out our live, online instructor-led Storyline classes.

Articulate Storyline: Trim Videos

by Kevin Siegel   

 

You can easily insert videos into Storyline from just about any video format. All you need to do is click the Insert tab on the Ribbon. From the Media group, click Video drop-down menu and choose Video From File.

I was working on a project recently and inserted a video onto one of my Storyline slides using the step above. Upon previewing the slide, I saw that a portion of the video needed to be trimmed. Fortunately, trimming a portion of a video is just as easy as inserting a video... and you don't have to leave the Storyline application.

First, select the video on the slide. Next, click the Video Tools Options tab on the Ribbon.

At the left of the Ribbon, click Edit Video to open the Articulate Video Editor. 

  

Once you're in the Video Editor, click Trim.

  

By default, the first and last half-second of the video is selected for Trimming. All that you need to do now is extend or reduce the Trim Start and/or Trim End markers as needed to specify the areas of the video that need to be trimmed.

When you're done, click Save & Close and the video is trimmed. It can't get much easier than that. 

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If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more Adobe Captivate, Adobe Presenter, or Articulate Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you. 

Articulate Storyline 2 Mini Course: Come Learn What's New!

The Articulate folks have done it again... they've added some new and amazing features that we think will put a smile on the face of existing Storyline users and the eLearning development community in general.

Attend this mini 3-hour course and get up to speed on Storyline 2's hottest new features and their practical uses. You will learn new ways to bring content to life, fine-tune the way your course looks and feels, and learn how to get your work done faster than ever before.

Using hands-on exercises focus on Storyline's new features, you will walk away ready to take full advantage of this awesome update. 

Learn more and sign up here!

eLearning: Add Some Character to Your Lessons

by Kevin Siegel   

Let's face it, some of the eLearning content you are required to create is a bit... shall we say, dry? A tad boring? A teeny bit heavy on the text and short on graphics?

One easy way to spruce up your eLearning content is to add characters (or guides). But where do you find quality images to use as guides? The good news is that both Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate offer some awesome, and most importantly, free Characters--out of the box.

Let's take a look at the Character features in both programs. While Characters have been around for several years in Captivate, and in both versions of Storyline, the images below are taken from the most recent versions of both programs, Captivate version 8; Storyline version 2.

Articulate Storyline 2

To insert a Character on a Storyline slide, open a slide and from the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click Character. You'll find two choices in the Character drop-down menu: Illustrated Character and Photographic Character.

 

In the image below, I've selected Illustrated Character, which opened the Characters dialog box. From here, you'll find multiple Characters, Expressions, and Poses.



I found the Expression options particularly cool... plenty from which to choose.



Shown below are Storyline's many poses. And if you look in the lower right of the dialog box, you'll even find three pose directions (Left, Front, Right).



And perhaps my favorite thing about Storyline's Characters is how easy it is to change the appearance of an inserted Character. In the Image below, notice that you can select a Character and totally change it to another character, change its Expression, Pose... even its Perspective. Simply awesome!



If you'd rather work with Photographic Characters, go back to the Character drop-down menu and choose Photographic Characters. As with the Illustrated Characters, you'll find multiple actors and poses.





Adobe Captivate 8

To insert a Character in Adobe Captivate, simply choose Media > Characters.



Similar to Storyline, Captivate's Characters dialog box presents you with several Categories, Characters, and Poses. (In the image below, I've selected a Character and Pose from the Business Category.)



If Captivate's Illustrated Characters work better for you, choose Illustrated from the Category drop-down menu and you'll be presented with four Illustrated Characters and various poses.



If you want to change the Character's pose in Captivate, you'll need to manually delete the Character from the slide and replace it with another (not as cool as Storyline's edit-on-the-fly technique, but perfectly functional).

Note: The Characters shown above aren't limited to Storyline and Captivate. You'll find many of the same Characters in Presenter.

 

Downloadable eLearning Characters

If you're not happy with the selection of characters that come with those programs, you'll find resources on the web offering thousands of eLearning characters. While you'll need to purchase those characters (typically in groups or packs), you are almost guaranteed to find the perfect character to fit within your scene. 

Two companies in particular jumped out when I went on an Internet search for characters: the eLearning Brothers and eLearning Art.

Between the two, the eLearning Brothers is likely the better-known company (orange anyone?). They call their Characters "cutout people," and they've got thousands of them. 

Over on the eLearning Art website, characters are referred to as "people cutout images." And like the eLearning Brothers, there are plenty from which to choose.

Another quick Internet search took me to eLearning.net where I found several free characters.

If you'd prefer stock photography for your eLearning projects, the eLearning Coach has compiled a handy list of resources. 

Lastly, check out AJ's article on free zombie characters... perfect for the season. 

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Looking for instructor-led training on Adobe Captivate? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Captivate classes. If Articulate Storyline is more your style, we've got you covered there too. 

Articulate Storyline: Insert Unused Screen Recordings

by Kevin Siegel   

Recording screen actions with Articulate Storyline couldn't be much easier... all you need to do is click Record screen on the Storyline Welcome screen and off you go.

During the recording process, Storyline records your screen actions using three different modes: View, Try, and Test. Once you have finished recording, the Insert as dialog box opens and, if you select Step-by-step slides, you can choose to insert any of the three modes into your project.

But what happens to the two unused modes? And what if you change your mind about the mode you used and instead want to use one of the other modes? At first glance, the unused modes are thrown away. If you want to use a different mode, it seems like you'll need to re-record. But that wouldn't be much fun, would it?

You'll be happy to learn that Storyline keeps each of the modes hidden away in the project and you can insert them into the project whenever you want.

From the main toolbar, click the Record Screen tool to display the mode you're currently using.

Click the thumbnail of the inserted mode and the Insert as dialog box opens.

Select one of the other modes from the Step-by-step slides drop-down menu and click the Insert button. The slides will be added to the project as a new scene.

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Looking for instructor-led training on Articulate Storyline? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Storyline classes. We've also just rolled up three new mini-courses. Check them out here.

Fundamentals of Designing and Developing Cost-Effective eLearning

When: September 22-25
Where: McCormick Place, Chicago (Part of the Online Learning Conference Certification program)

There are multiple tools available that will let you create compelling eLearning content including Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, TechSmith Camtasia Studio, and Adobe Presenter. But which tool is the best, most affordable option for your needs?

Once you select your eLearning tool, what's next? How do you get started creating your first eLearning content? Once you start, how long is it going to take you to finish? What's the real cost for your effort? Are there hidden costs? How will you be able to measure the effectiveness of your eLearning?

Join IconLogic's Kevin Siegel for an intense, tool-agnostic, hands-on workshop where you'll get a jump start on  building your first eLearning course.

Among other things, you'll learn:

• Strategies for building effective eLearning
• The eLearning development process
• How to create an eLearning script and/or storyboard
• How to get started on creating eLearning content using Captivate, Storyline, Camtasia or Presenter

More information.

eLearning: Articulate Storyline and Microsoft PowerPoint

by Kevin Siegel   

If Microsoft PowerPoint is your starting point for developing eLearning content, you can reuse that content in any of the top eLearning development tools including Adobe Presenter, Adobe Captivate, and TechSmith Camtasia Studio.

This week I'm going to show you how to use Articulate Storyline and PowerPoint to jump start the eLearning development process.

You can either create a new Storyline project using a PowerPoint presentation or import PowerPoint content into an existing Storyline project. In the image below, notice that there is an Import PowerPoint menu item on Storyline's Welcome screen.

After clicking Import PowerPoint and opening the PowerPoint presentation, the Import Slides dialog box opens. You can select all of the PowerPoint slides or pick and choose. Once you've selected the slide(s) you want, click the Import button.

The PowerPoint slides are imported into the Storyline project as Storyline slides and you'll end up in Story View.

Unlike Camtasia (where the presentation becomes one, uneditable video), or Captivate (where each slide is converted to an uneditable video), opening a Storyline slide reveals an interesting possibility: the original PowerPoint slide objects can be manipulated. For instance, in the image below, the PowerPoint text box says "To continually develop..."

Without leaving Storyline, I was able to edit the text in the image below to "To usually develop..."

The ability to edit the PowerPoint content directly in Storyline is awesome. However, there is no link between Storyline and the original PowerPoint presentation. If your subject matter expert is still making changes to the original PowerPoint presentation, you won't see those changes in Storyline (moreover, you'll have to make those changes in Storyline yourself). If the PowerPoint presentation is a moving target, you might want to wait until all of the PowerPoint edits are final prior to importing the presentation into Storyline. As I showed you last week, a Captivate project and original PowerPoint presentation can be linked. If the PowerPoint presentation is updated, you can easily get those updates to appear in Captivate. You might want to keep this fundamental difference between Captivate and Storyline in mind when choosing between the two development tools.

According to Articulate Support, here are some other limitations you should keep in mind when importing PowerPoint content:

• Imported text may not look the same way it does in PowerPoint. You may find some variations in font size, line spacing, alignment, colors, or bullets.
• Presentation size: If your PowerPoint presentation is a different size than your Storyline project, you may need to make adjustments to the size and placement of objects after importing them. Or, you can change your story size to match your PowerPoint presentation before importing.
• Embedded fonts: Storyline doesn't support embedded fonts from PowerPoint. If a font used in the PowerPoint presentation isn't installed on your computer, Storyline will apply the default Articulate font to the imported text.
• Animations and slide transitions: PowerPoint entrance and exit animations are supported in Storyline and will be imported--though some will be converted to Fade animations. Similarly, some PowerPoint slide transitions are supported in Storyline, while others get converted to Fade transitions. Emphasis animations and motion paths aren't supported and won't be imported into Storyline.
• SmartArt Graphics will be imported as images.
• Tables will be imported as images.
• Equations will be imported as images.
• Slide numbers won't be imported into Storyline.
• 3-D rotation: Objects with 3-D rotation will be imported as images without 3-D rotation.
• GIF images: Animated GIFs will be imported as static images.
• Line thicknesses: Border and line widths may appear slightly different in Storyline.

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Looking for instructor-led training on Articulate Storyline? Check out our live, online, instructor-led Storyline classes.

eLearning & Training: How Long is Too Long?

by Kevin Siegel   

You can create the best-looking, most well-written eLearning lesson anyone has ever seen. But for the lesson to be effective, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that more does not mean better. If your lesson plays too long, you run the risk of losing the attention span of your learner and lowering the effectiveness of the lesson in general.

So how long is too long? The answer is directly tied to the average attention span of an adult learner. According to Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish, Indiana University, "Adult learners can keep tuned in to a lecture for no more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time."

In their excellent article, The 'Change-Up' in Lectures, Middendorf and Kalish found that after three to five minutes of 'settling down' at the start of class, a lapse of attention usually occurred 10 to 18 minutes later. As the lecture proceeded the attention span became shorter and often fell to three or four minutes towards the end of a standard lecture.

I have been teaching classes for nearly 30 years (both online and in-person). Keeping my students engaged (and awake) has always been a top concern. Here's one final quote from the Middendorf and Kalish article (and it's something to which any trainer can relate). One of their colleagues attended a class and observed the following: 

"I sat in the back of the classroom, observing and taking careful notes as usual. The class had started at one o'clock. The student sitting in front of me took copious notes until 1:20. Then he just nodded off. The student sat motionless, with eyes shut for about a minute and a half, pen still poised. Then he awoke and continued his rapid note-taking as if he hadn't missed a beat."

In the 1800s, people had very good attention spans. In her article, Keeping Pace with Today's Quick Brains, Kathie F. Nunley cited the Lincoln-Douglas debates which were literally read from paper and lasted for hours. Nunley said that "people stayed, listened, and paid attention."

Back in the Lincoln-Douglas days, there was less competition for the attention span of the debate attendees. But what about today? Why are attention spans getting shorter? More likely than not the culprit is the distractions and experiences of modern daily life.

"Today's mind, young or old, is continuously bombarded with new and novel experiences. Rather than novel opportunities every few days or weeks, we now have novelty presented in micro-seconds," said Nunley.

eLearning and the Common Goldfish

So eLearning lessons can last anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes and still be effective, yes? Ummm, no. The 15-20 minute range was for an in-person classroom with a live trainer. The times are just a bit different when it comes to asynchronous eLearning lessons that will be accessed over the Internet. 

According to the article Turning into Digital Goldfish, "The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of a goldfish."

Granted, a learner accessing your eLearning lesson will have a greater attention span than a typical web surfer--or even a goldfish. However, in my experience developing eLearning, I put the attention span of an adult learner at 15-20 seconds per slide or scene. If the slide/scene plays any longer, your learner will begin to fog out.

I know what you're thinking: 15-20 seconds is not enough time to teach anything. If your slide contains some voiceover audio, a text caption or two, and an interactive object controlling navigation (such as a button or click box), 15-20 seconds is perfect. Your student will have enough time to understand and absorb the content before moving on to the next slide.

I encourage students who attend my eLearning classes to try to chunk a one-hour eLearning course into several short eLearning lessons. That would translate into 12 Captivate eLearning lessons (if you use the 5 minute-per-lesson timing) for the 60-minute course.

What do you think? Is 3-5 minutes the right amount of timing for an eLearning module? I'd love to see your opinion as comments below.

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Looking for instructor-led training on the top eLearning tools? We offer live, online training on Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia Studio.We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested? Contact us for details.

eLearning: Is Right-Clicking Right?

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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Looking for instructor-led training on the top eLearning tools? We offer live, online training on Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia Studio.We can also bring the same great training onsite to your facility. Interested? Contact us for details.

eLearning & Presentations: More Free Images. A MILLION more!

by AJ Walther  

Want more free images for your eLearning or PowerPoint presentations? How about over a MILLION more? In December of last year, the British Library released into the public domain a huge collection of scanned images from more than 65,000 books spanning the 16th to 19th centuries. Yes, that's right, I said public domain. That means these images are free to use, share, and modify in any way that you see fit. The library asks only that you help to populate the metadata for the images to help make them more easily searchable--and to help spread the knowledge.

 

The project is called the Mechanical Curator and is housed on a tumblr page that purports to post a randomly selected small illustration or ornamentation from these antiquated books. All of the images can be found on the British Library's flickr feed. 

  

Think these images are a little too old school for anything you'll be designing? Think again. Just for funsies I threw together a little eLearning layout by using the British Library's free images. Here's what I came up with:

The great thing about these images is that most all of them go together cohesively. And that "B" I used? I was able to find every letter I searched for, in a variety of styles. That could lead to endless designs... for free! Design on, friends.

See also:

• Recommended Free Image Sites
• Thousands and Thousands of Free Images
• Finding Google Images You Can Actually Use
• What Happened to Microsoft's Free Image Gallery?