Designing Custom Table of Contents Menus in E-Learning #182

David Anderson
By David Anderson

Designing Custom Table of Contents Menus in E-Learning #182

Table of Contents in E-Learning #182: Challenge | Recap

Create a Custom Table of Contents to Help Learners Navigate Through the Course

Today’s authoring tools make it easier than ever to customize how the menu looks and where it’s placed in the course player. But there will be times when designers want to move beyond the default menu options and design their own course menu. 

While DIY menus take longer to design and implement, they’re worth the time if they help learners get more from their training. And that’s what this week’s challenge is all about.

Moving Beyond the Default Player Menu

Storyline’s menu options on the Player Properties window allow you to control how the player menu appears in your published course. This is a classic table of contents–style menu that provides all the functionality most courses need.

Moving Beyond the Default Player Menu

Using a Table of Contents Style Menu

When you want even more control over your menu design’s fonts, colors, graphics, bookmarking, and types of menu information, you’ll need to create everything yourself. The good news is: tools like Storyline make this really easy!

Using a Table of Contents Style Menu

Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to share an example of a custom table of contents menu. What other types of information can you include in your TOC that go beyond learner progress?

You don’t need to build out a real project this week. Use placeholder slides and content to allow more time for your custom table of contents menu.

Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you lay your e-learning cards on the table, take a look at the interactive “choose your own adventure” examples your fellow community members shared over the past week:

Choose Your Own Adventure in E-Learning

Choose Your Own Adventure in E-Learning RECAP #181: Challenge | Recap

Looking forward to seeing what you bring to the table this week, E-Learning Heroes!

New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

85 Comments
ricky snodgrass
8 months ago10/23/17 at 3:07 pm (UTC)
This challenge couldn't have been better timed for me! I have been playing with contents slides to allow users to navigate through activities at their own pace and in their own order. If you want to know more about these slides please check out my blog post here http://rickysnodgrass.co.uk/elearning-hero-182-contents, contact me on their if you want the files two. I have two for you this week : Selector 1 - Hover contents slide – No fancy stuff, plain and simple, looks beautiful and links through to other content. https://goo.gl/vq49Yv Selector 2 - Suggested order, tracks progress and can quite easily lock a final activity down to the variables that already exist. https://goo.gl/4HkZUz
Stephanie Harnett
8 months ago10/25/17 at 2:07 pm (UTC)
I placed 2 copies of the next button in a layer on top of each other. The bottom copy is 50% transparent and the top is normal. The top one has an entrance and an exit fade of .75 and the timeline is 1.5 seconds long. Two triggers were added to the top copy to change the state to hidden when the entrance animation completes and a second trigger to set it to normal when the exit animation completes. A roundabout way to create a flashing effect. : )
Eric Quarrell
8 months ago10/31/17 at 5:42 am (UTC)
Hello Everyone! I know this might be late for this weeks competition, but I told myself after this years DevLearn conference that I wanted to get more involved in the eLearning community. So here is my submission. I created it based on a fake outdoor product company. If anyone has any questions on the scripting/variable work, please don't hesitate to ask, I am happy to share! https://360.articulate.com/review/content/15539da9-3bc2-4762-afb9-9fdd99065780/review
Douglas Audirsch
8 months ago11/02/17 at 6:42 pm (UTC)
Here is a project I'm working on. I deleted most of the content to cut down on the size, but I wanted to share my attempt at creative navigation. I was working in PowerPoint but I wanted the user to be oblivious to that fact. I wanted them to get so caught up in the interaction that the tool was invisible. https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-trainerdougsportfolio-tkczz/elearning/powerpoint/DesktopExample.pptx
Mallory Holder
8 months ago11/03/17 at 7:32 pm (UTC)
These are all so creative! I've enjoyed looking through them all. I have a question for an admin (or anyone who can help)...how does one submit a challenge? I know it says to post a link in the comments, but how do you upload to create a link? Is this something only available for 360? Or do you upload it to an outside source? I'm just a little confused. I've looked through some posts for a hint but have come up short. If I'm just missing something, please let me know. Thanks in advance!
Eileen Meliksetian
8 months ago11/09/17 at 1:22 pm (UTC)
Hi all. Great entries! Adding mine into the mix. This (short) demo shows a custom table of contents users can choose to open or close. It also provides a content map for the workflow and identifies where the learner is in the process. For this demo, step 1 (Import Video) is functional. http://s3.amazonaws.com/EbmDemo/Projects/Weekly%20Challenge%20182/story.html
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