How to Require Learners to Enter Their Username in Text Entry Forms

I recently got a great question on an article I wrote called Add and Display a User’s Name in Storyline. The article shows a simple process using Storyline to capture a learner’s name with a variable and text entry field, which you can then reference throughout the course to add a personal touch.

As it stands right now, if you follow the process in my article, the learner is not required to enter a name, and can simply click Continue without entering a one. A community member, Caroline Smith, wanted to know how she could ensure that the learner has to enter a name in the text entry field, and not let them move forward without completing that step. Great question! It actually comes down to using one simple conditional trigger.

First, add a new trigger to the button that users click to move to the next slide. Then add a condition that says, essentially, “Only jump to the next slide IF the user has entered a name in the text entry field.”

Your trigger will look a bit like this:

Notice that the condition does NOT have a value.

The value field is left blank. This ensures that the learner can’t leave the field blank when they click Continue.

Now, the trigger condition is terrific at fulfilling the requirements you give it—but it doesn’t have human judgment, so it can’t prevent sneaky learners from entering gobbledy-gook or something else that’s not their name. But you can set it up so the user has to enter any character combination (even just one letter) in the text entry field in order for the Continue button to work.

And there you have it—a simple trigger with a condition is all you need to ensure that learners enter a name in the field before they proceed in your course. Do you have a method of your own for doing this? Or any tips or tricks about using conditional triggers to share with the community? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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