Help with variables and conditions

Apr 26, 2022

Hi everyone, I'm trying to do some planning on a PowerPoint slide before I program into Storyline. Here's what I want to achieve:

1. Learners land on a 'home' slide and get to choose from one of three scenarios to view.

2. Learner branches to scene based on choice above, views scenario, and learns about the topic (conflict management) in detail.

3. When done, Learner returns to 'home slide' and has a choice to either continue learning (go to next section in course) or to view another scenario. But this time, whichever scenario they choose will be abbreviated.

I'm thinking I need a variable for each scenario to track if it's been viewed or not. I'm attaching my planning document here. I know this can be done but I am not confident yet in my planning. I would appreciate your programming expertise! Thanks for the help.

Lisa_programming_planning.png

3 Replies

Judy Nollet
Hero

2 years ago04/27/22 at 12:46 pm (UTC)

Very smart to map the branching in advance! It looks like you've got a good plan.

For this sort of tracking, I like to use T/F variables, with a default value of False. Change that to True on the last slide of the corresponding section (or at another appropriate place).

Since you just need to know whether any scenario has been viewed in full, you only need 1 variable for tracking. That'll simplify your programming.

I'm wondering what the difference is between the initial and abbreviated scenarios. If they use some of the same content (that is, some slides would be identical), you could keep all of the content in one scene. Then trigger the NEXT button to follow a given path based on the value of the tracking variable. With that method, you don't have to maintain multiple copies of the same content.

Good luck!

2 years ago04/27/22 at 1:18 pm (UTC)

Thank you @JudyNollet! I will edit this again - you're right, I can probably keep all the content in one scene - the first view will provide more slides on using a conflict management model. The second viewing will just use the scene with a video with headlines that show the steps in the model as the manager character is using them. Thanks again, I'll try this approach!

2 years ago04/27/22 at 7:47 pm (UTC)

The final users won't know whether you used one or multiple scenes. So that decision really depends on personal preference. If putting each scenario in a separate scene helps you with development, then do it. :-)