Using Lightbox Slides for Just-In-Time Learning #433

David Anderson
By David Anderson

Using Lightbox Slides for Just-In-Time Learning #433

Using Lightbox Slides in E-Learning #433: Challenge | Recap

Looking for a way to present any type of content in an engaging, focused, and interactive way without requiring learners to navigate away from the current slide? Look no further than lightbox slides. 

Course designers use lightbox slides to load various types of content, such as images, videos, text, and job aids, in an overlay or modal window that appears above the current slide. This allows learners to focus on the displayed content without branching out to a new slide.

Here are some common ways to use lightbox slides in e-learning:

  • Quick reference guides: Use lightbox slides to present concise summaries of important information, such as key terms, formulas, or procedures. 
  • Quizzes and knowledge checks: Integrate quizzes or assessments within lightbox slides to check learners' understanding and provide immediate feedback. 
  • Supplemental resources: Lightbox slides can be used to present additional resources, such as PDFs, articles, or external websites, that support and expand upon course content. 
  • FAQs and help sections: Include a lightbox slide with frequently asked questions and answers or a help section to address common challenges or misunderstandings. 
  • On-demand video tutorials: Lightbox slides can be used to create step-by-step interactive tutorials that guide learners through a process or concept. 

🏆 Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to show how lightbox slides can be used as performance support in e-learning. 

🗂️ Resources

We’ve hosted a couple of lightbox challenges over the years. Check out the following recap posts to get an idea of how designers use this simple-yet-powerful tool in e-learning:

📒 User Guide

🖥️ On-Demand Training

✨ Share Your E-Learning Work

  • Comments: Use the comments section below to link your published example and blog post.
  • Forums: Start a new thread and share a link to your published example.
  • Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link to your posts so your great work gets even more exposure.
  • Social media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can follow your e-learning coolness.

Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you share your lightbox examples, check out the creative ways escape room techniques can be used in e-learning:

16 Ways to Use Escape Room Interactions in E-Learning #432

Escape Room Examples in E-Learning RECAP #432: Challenge | Recap

👋 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.

Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article. 

Got an idea for a challenge? Are you interested in doing a webinar showcasing how you made one or more challenge demos? Or do you have some comments for your humble challenge host? Use this anonymous form to share your feedback:  https://bit.ly/ElearningChallengeForm.

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David Anderson
David Anderson
Director, Customer Training
55 Comments
Jonathan Hill
7 months ago09/23/23 at 4:40 pm (UTC)
Hello! One of the benefits of using a lightbox over layers, is that complex interactions can be easier to build and manage as separate lightboxed slides. But you have less control over the appearance of a lightbox than layers. However, with Javascript it is possible to remove the default 'close' button and to hide the base slide. This makes the lightbox perform a bit more like a layer. This 'pick one' quiz tracks your actions within the lightbox and provides adaptive feedback. With just two options, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a 50/50 shot. But if you don't view all of the information in the lightbox, or misinterpret this information, you won't get a pass. SECOND OPINION Demo: https://bit.ly/elhc433 Download: https://bit.ly/elhc433dl
Jodi M. Sansone
7 months ago09/25/23 at 2:43 am (UTC)
Oh great! Thank for telling us about it. I just looked up neck injuries and found a fractured C6-7. I can't wait to tell my doctor I consulted with radiopaedia.org to diagnose myself! :) He'll really hate me now! That's worse than saying "I talked to my neighbor who's an orthopedist and he said..." https://radiopaedia.org/cases/c6-7-fracture-dislocation?lang=us
Jonathan Hill
7 months ago09/26/23 at 4:50 pm (UTC)
Zsolt Olah's POP99 remains a good place to start. https://www.rabbitoreg.com/examples/p99/#/ For now, I'd recommend experimenting and borrowing examples from others. Bear in mind that Javascript won't work in Preview mode. But if you open my .story file next to yours and copy the Javascript triggers into your lightboxed slides, the code should work straight out of the (light)box.
Jayashree Ravi
7 months ago09/24/23 at 4:28 am (UTC)
Presenting 'Operating Theatre Essentials Challenge', an interactive e-learning quiz designed to showcase the effective use of lightbox slides. Delve into the world of operating theatre essentials through this engaging quiz, where learners click on key objects within an operation theatre scene to reveal quizzes and test their knowledge. Explore the courseware - https://storage.googleapis.com/learncraftstudios/Operating%20Theatre%20Essentials%20Challenge/story.html
Jodi M. Sansone
7 months ago09/25/23 at 2:30 am (UTC)
Frenchy Yoga Poses Demo: https://jodisdemos.s3.amazonaws.com/434+Frenchy+Yoga+Lightbox/story.html Download: https://jodisdemos.s3.amazonaws.com/434+Frenchy+Yoga+Poses.story I decided to amuse myself with this demo--French bulldogs doing yoga to Debussy. I used a couple new Storyline features--the playlist and the new text to speech voices. I liked how you can turn down the volume on the music when the slide narration is triggered. I also threw in some scroll panels and several T/F variables to toggle the audio description of the poses (generated by Chat GPT). One thing I did on the lightbox--I set up my base slide so that when the light box is called up, you don't see the base slide underneath. It looks cleaner. Have a great week!
Anne-Renée Mauuarin
7 months ago09/25/23 at 11:21 am (UTC)
Three art museums in Oslo Demo with sound: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/c0a38c60-5f42-4e16-94cf-17d3d0ecf218/review ETA Demo without sound: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/ebede9c6-97a5-4d1d-83b0-b90d65fc734a/review Here's my contribution, a simple presentation of the three major art museums in Oslo, Norway: The Munch museum, the National museum and the Astrup Fearnley museum of modern art. All the usual susptects are there: triggers, music, links and I used the java script snippet to remove the default close-button and made my own.
Thierry EMMANUEL
7 months ago09/25/23 at 2:36 pm (UTC)
Bonjour Heroes. For the last lightbox challenge, I proposed "Where do you need a lightbox more than in a cave?". For this one, I propose "When do you need a lightbox more than... in the night?". I use JS code to delete the close button and change it. And a second JS code to make the bottom of the lightbox transparent, because I need it for this demo. (these two codes come from Russel Killips in a discussion 3 years ago). https://360.articulate.com/review/content/db03872a-b1d4-4eca-ac5e-079919d7b32f/review Tuesday : I've added a lightbox to a button of the Player, because that's how a lightbox is most different and usefull from a layer.
Fred Good
7 months ago09/25/23 at 6:59 pm (UTC)
I just started watching the tutoiral (late to the party!) but I'm already planning to use this for all of my "sound check" slides (if they have to leave a course and come back later), and any "progress maps" where users would go back to see where they are on a map of the course! SUPER cool!! I'm getting so many ideas from this today! Thanks David!
Norma Johnson
7 months ago09/25/23 at 11:14 pm (UTC)
I have used a lightbox as a glossary in the past, but had some fun with this quick project. It shows the before, quick 'blueprints', and the after of part of a remodel. Did not do any JS for this, but really need to do some improving my skills with Java moving forward. :) enjoy. https://360.articulate.com/review/content/b6220e10-4017-441f-b28f-67e55ab31dc5/review
Jodi M. Sansone
7 months ago09/27/23 at 6:32 pm (UTC)
Management Essentials--Characters, Settings and Scenarios Demo: https://jodisdemos.s3.amazonaws.com/421+True+False+Variables/story.html I was working on this demo to post in #421 on T/F variables and used a lightbox slide as a gateway to branching scenarios, so here's a cross post. After you choose your manager and setting, you go to a lightbox slide which leads you to one of four management scenarios.
Bhawna Singh
7 months ago10/02/23 at 4:27 pm (UTC)
Hello Community! I am a complete newbie in this field and the link is not for this challenge, though I am working on a small project for lightboxes, just need to do last minute edits. This storyboard was actually a ppt format I had created for teachers, who wanted to get introduced to the platform Google Classroom during the pandemic. I was delivering a training in that scenario, but after learning about Instructional Design, I decided to convert that experience into a short course as a form of practice. Really glad to find such a supportive and active community. Eagerly waiting for feedback and perspective. :) https://360.articulate.com/review/content/4b07e55e-b000-4b12-9dbf-2319a806377c/review
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