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E-Learning Challenges
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How are You Using Drag-and-Drop Interactions in E-Learning? #468

DavidAnderson's avatar
DavidAnderson
Staff
6 months ago

Using Drag-and-Drop in E-Learning #468: Challenge | Recap

If there’s one e-learning interaction that belongs in every instructional designer’s toolkit, it’s drag-and-drops.

Drag-and-drop interactions are a fun way to engage learners and encourage them to interact with the screen. They’re also one of the most flexible interactions you can create.

So, whether you’re designing straightforward question slides or custom freeform slides, drag-and-drop interactions are one of the best ways to get learners to stop, think, and interact with the content. And that’s what this week’s challenge is all about.

🏆 Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to share a drag-and-drop interaction to show how they can be used in e-learning. You can use any authoring tool you like and make it as simple or custom as you have time for.

Note: Since Storyline’s drag-and-drop interactions aren’t currently keyboard accessible, they can create serious barriers for learners who rely on keyboard navigation or use screen readers. Check out the following on-demand training for some ideas on creating accessible drag-and-drops:

🧰 Resources

User Guide 

Related Challenges: 

Webinars:

6 Ways to Customize Drag-and-Drop in Storyline 360

Discover six creative techniques every course designer needs to know to customize their drag-and-drop interactions in Articulate Storyline 360

View on YouTube

✨ 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:

While you're dragging through the ideas for this week's challenge, check out the 360° image interactions your fellow challengers shared over the past week:

Using 360° Images in E-Learning RECAP #467: 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. 

Published 6 months ago
Version 1.0
E-Learning Challenge
Interaction
Interactive Objects
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Nichole, nice interaction. I like how the Knight talks you through the process. And the battle was indeed EPIC.
    • MatthiasNaber's avatar
      MatthiasNaber
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      The battle is epic. Also really liked the "side" notes from the knight. Felt like a first time Squire :D
    • PhezuluDhlod919's avatar
      PhezuluDhlod919
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Interesting and engaging interaction. I like the fact that it has adequate instructions to offer a well scaffolded and meaningful experience.
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Hi Kate, Everything flowed and worked exactly as expected. I like that the line up dots did not line up if the silverware choices were wrong (for example, the soup spoon and the teaspoon)
  • ThierryEMMANUEL's avatar
    ThierryEMMANUEL
    Community Member
    6 months ago
    Bonjour Heroes.
    For me this week, a real client challenge in my real professional life.
    I thought it would be interesting to share my journey to finding a solution... among maybe ten other possible ones, or ten others that already exist. When I have a problem, I don't rush to the internet to find a solution FIRST, I look for it myself FIRST. Thanks to the E-learning challenges!
    For my next job, a client wants a drag and drop activity with several good possible drop zones, which Storyline doesn't allow. Check out the first slide of the demo to see what I mean, and the following to understand why the simplest solutions aren't entirely satisfactory.
    File.story attached in Review comments.
    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/4b3cf099-ad0b-4231-bbad-002eb7f97f6d/review
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Thierry, I appreciate your sharing your journey to come up with solutions to the customer's request. Very informative.
    • LD_Sabrina's avatar
      LD_Sabrina
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Hey Thierry, I really like the solution you came up with in the end!

      Storyline allows multiple drop zones. I used it in my entry, where the user hast to drop something in one of three Hotspot zones. It is quite simple.

      I'm not using a question or freeform slide for this, just a plain slide.
      If you make a new trigger use the action "change state of", choose object and desired state (I prefer a color coded disabled state with green for correct and red for wrong).
      Then for When scroll down and use the last one "object is dropped on". Select the draggable object. For targets you can check multiple objects in the slide.
    • PhezuluDhlod919's avatar
      PhezuluDhlod919
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      This is a unique approach to working around the SL360 limitation Thierry. Good work. Thank you for sharing.
  • JodiSansone's avatar
    JodiSansone
    Community Member
    6 months ago
    Tressed to Impress
    Demo: https://jodisdemos.s3.amazonaws.com/468+Tressed/story.html

    Sometimes I'm amazed at how totally clueless I am about the world. I just learned the meaning of a new word five days ago, so now you have to learn it too. :) I thought this word was a family's last name (like Milton) or a dessert holder (like ramekin), or maybe a James Bond villain (like Safin). And once I learned the word (from a server at a restaurant) my first thought was "Oh, great. Now I know what to do for Challenge #468!" Drag/drop is a couple slides in and I did a keystroke alternative. Don't look at it if you might be offended by discussions of body hair.
    • ThierryEMMANUEL's avatar
      ThierryEMMANUEL
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Absolutely fascinating, Jodi. I'd never heard of it, or paid any attention to it. This discovery brightened my day. Strangely enough, I had trouble finding a French synonime. Lots of similar expressions, mostly based on the equivalent you put on your head, but no specific "name". The Wikipedia page shows a photo of one with a lamp. This opens up new perspectives... Your drag-and-drop will go down in history, that's for sure.
    • NicholeCodri604's avatar
      NicholeCodri604
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      OMG that's hilarious and news to me! Great interaction and I love how you ended it ;-)
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      A morning DJ I used to listen to in the SF Bay Area was always talking about merkins. So, I get the reference. People with medical conditions sometimes want to appear "normal". If there is a need, there will always be a product.
  • AngelaThomas-9b's avatar
    AngelaThomas-9b
    Community Member
    6 months ago
    I made a drag-and-drop for learners to practice staging a kitchen for an open house.
    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/4aace074-42d7-4199-89ff-1986fea196bb/review

    I am really happy with how the final slide turned out! I used triggers so that the slide shows all 6 items that the user chose. If you retry the interactions, this final slide updates with the new selections.

    Also, I added an accessibility option for keyboard users to select 1 or 2 instead of dragging the item. I triggered it so that when the user enters the number, it jumps to the correct or incorrect layer. However, this doesn't keep track of the score. Has anyone come up with a work around for this?
    • Ron_Katz's avatar
      Ron_Katz
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      This is great, Angela. I couldn't get it to give a score whether I dragged or used the keyboard navigation. I would suggest using either T/F variables or offscreen states to track correct or incorrect selections. Then you can add them to the total score in Storyline.
    • PhezuluDhlod919's avatar
      PhezuluDhlod919
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      This is an interesting and engaging exercise. I can imagine the meticulous work involved in customizing all the possible staging scenarios and artefacts.
      • AngelaThomas-9b's avatar
        AngelaThomas-9b
        Community Member
        6 months ago
        Thanks Phezulu. Yes, it took a lot of trial and error, but I learned a lot! :)
    • NicholeCodri604's avatar
      NicholeCodri604
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      I liked your use of keyboard navigation! I'm getting so many ideas of how to make drag and drops more accessible! Thank you!
      • JesseWu's avatar
        JesseWu
        Community Member
        6 months ago
        Thank you for your kind word. I will post my mental gymnastics below, so other can reference if needed.

        Regular:
        1. User drops Item 1 on Drop Zone 1 ->
        2. Set the success condition to True. When it is true, exec some commands (hide Item 1 and show Animation 1 in my case) ->
        3. Hide Item 1 triggers “when Item 1 leaves the slide” ->
        4. Move the hidden Item 1 along a motion path to its original position ->
        5. When this motion path finished, set the success condition to False and set the hidden Item 1 to normal (Reset everything for next round)

        Accessible, To simulate the drop action:
        1. Bind a key to select Item 1 ->
        2. Bind another key to decide Drop Zone 1 ->
        3. Create a motion path from Item 1 to Drop Zone 1 ->
        4. If the State of Item 1 is selected when press Drop Key 1, move Item 1 to Drop Zone 1 ->
        5. When this motion path finished, Set the success condition to true, the rest Ibid. You don't have to set up more if you have done the regular part.

        Another key point is to set up pause the timeline whenever the timeline starts on this slide, or it will trigger all animations for other items when you dropped an item.
    • PhezuluDhlod919's avatar
      PhezuluDhlod919
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      Plain and simple interaction. Thank you for making it accessible using a keyboard as well.
    • ded2's avatar
      ded2
      Community Member
      6 months ago
      This was fun. And I learned something!
    • HillaSchlegel's avatar
      HillaSchlegel
      Community Member
      6 months ago

      Love the idea and admire the simple explanation, Sabrina! It's fun to see gravity at work and how each object takes its own unique path to the floor—thanks to shapes and air resistance. Just as long as nothing too important or fragile is falling!
  • SuzanneNeafus's avatar
    SuzanneNeafus
    Community Member
    6 months ago
    I created a "Which Book Should I Read" inspired by the Books by Mood & Emotion page on WhichBook https://www.whichbook.net/mood-emotion/

    It currently only shows non-fiction selections. The fiction titles have been selected, including a time travel option, but want to do some research to see if I can tighten up how I do things before adding them. Plus, still deciding on a background for the selection screen. With a busy week coming up, decided to post this now instead of waiting.

    Project in Action: https://tinyurl.com/3s7twksw
    Storyline File: https://tinyurl.com/3j223kd4

    Just noticed an issue if you select reading level before character.