Despite the ongoing debate about locked versus unlocked course navigation, there will always be some scenarios where it makes sense to control how a learner progresses through your course. Even within an unlocked course, you might have specific slides that you don’t want learners to navigate away from without fulfilling a certain requirement, such as watching a video or reviewing some specific content.

Anytime you have special requirements like these is a perfect time to add conditions to your navigation triggers. In Articulate Storyline, conditions give you the IF-THEN logic you need to evaluate whether an action should occur. With just a few clicks, you can make your triggers much “smarter, ” without any programming or coding whatsoever.


Let’s say, for example, that you want to add a condition to an existing navigation button so it jumps to another slide only if certain requirements have been met—such as, if the learner played a video to completion, or finished a drag-and-drop exercise. I’d like to share two ways to build a navigation button that behaves according to the conditions you specify.

Temporarily disable the built-in Next button

Watch this tutorial

Here are the steps from the video above:

  1. Begin by creating a True/False variable, and set its initial value to False.
  2. Next, add a new trigger to the slide that adjusts the value of the variable to True when a specific event has occurred. In this case, the event is when the video finishes playing.
  3. Finally, edit the Next Slide player trigger to add a condition, so the Next button will only work if your True/False variable is True. The condition should look something like this:

Remove the built-in Next button and create your own custom navigation button

Watch this tutorial

Here are the steps from the video above:

  1. First, remove the built-in Next button for the slide; click here to learn how.
  2. Next, add your own Next button to the slide.
  3. Set the initial state of your button to either Hidden or Disabled.
  4. Finally, add a new trigger to your button that changes its state to Normal when a specific event happens. In this case, the event is when all of the tabs on the slide have been visited.

Regardless of whether you and President Obama support locking your course navigation, you can always take advantage of Storyline’s powerful IF-THEN logic and add conditions to your triggers and actions if your course circumstances call for controlled navigation.


Have an experience with course navigation you’d like to share? Please tell us about it in the Comments section below.

Post written by Mike Taylor

If you want to try this yourself but don't have Storyline, no problem. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial. And don't forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We're here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.

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