How to enhance the playback of videos for your leaners

A problem I have encountered in Storyline is that if a learner is watching a video and the slide is set to advance automatically upon ending, the slide will end prior to the end of the video and the learner misses part of the video. This can happen because of a delay in loading the video or if the learner pauses the video by clicking on it or by pausing the video controls vs using the slide controls. Here is how I deal with this issue.

1.    Don’t use the video controls, but rather keep the slide controls active so that to pause/play, rewind or fast forward, the learner should use the controls on the slide.

2.    To prevent the learner from pausing the video by clicking directly on the video, I put in a fully transparent shape over the video. The learner will be clicking on the shape and not the video, so it doesn’t pause.

(advanced) If you have a series of videos, I create a special video layout in my slide master that has a layer with the transparent object and a trigger that causes the layer to show when the slide starts.

3. Lastly, I set the slide to Advance by user and set a trigger to Jump to the next slide when Video completes.