E-Learning Heroes - Advice and ideas from the Articulate Community

Hi there,

I have a client who gave me an incredibly fast deadline... develop 3 modules, and the first draft of each was essentially due within two weeks. I gave them the option of having me storyboard in PPT with descriptions of interactions, or to rapid prototype right in Storyline, where I could actually program the interactions in about the same time that it would take me to describe them. I showed them Storyline, and they told me to go for rapid prototyping.

I designed directly in Storyline, and even recorded and synced narration. I demo'ed the modules to them, we tweaked them real time, and they were pleased. They sent Draft 1 out to a very large review team, and now... their major stakeholder who holds the purse strings for their funding (and whether they get renewed funding, which is dependent on the success of these modules), is questioning everything.

Now they're asking me to create storyboards, in PPT or Word. I explained to them that it's tedious work to create a storyboard AFTER THE MODULE IS DEVELOPED, and it does not actually achieve anything.

So... do any of you have any advice on how to explain that the whole point of rapid prototyping is to progress quickly beyond time-consuming storyboards and essentially storyboard/develop right in the tool?

Any help is welcomed!

Gosh Lisa,

clients who are exposed to rapid development for the first time need to be educated first. 

I usually storyboard the old fashion way, paper and pencil away from technology. It is very low level and can be done anywhere at any time. To give clients some ideas, I send them the Articulate showcase link. 

I also have a portofolio containing all trials, prototypes...of all my projects. 

There's nothing worse then giving a blank piece of paper to the customer, he'll trap you in his train toughts and you're in for the journey. 

For now, why don't you publish to Word. The Word-file can be adapted at will. Its fast...

cheers 

Geert

Thanks, Geert. I spent a good bit of time discussing rapid prototyping with the client, and even showed them how I author right in Storyline and they saw me rapidly update/design during our review meetings. The issue is one of their SMEs.. essentially one influential SME asking for us to backtrack.

Your idea to export to Word is great... I hope it doesn't go that way, but I hadn't thought of that and at least that helps. I'm creating a PPT now that explains what storyboards are, what rapid prototyping is, pros/cons, why we decided on this approach, etc. I'm hoping that by defending the rationale, we can push back on the request to storyboard after the fact.