I would like to know if there were reports of animating objects or using animation in Storyline 360 makes it heavy in the LMS? In my company, another department is using another e-learning tool which is web-based. And the boss of this department criticized my work because I use animation. He is saying that the animation makes it heavy in the LMS. I have been using Articulate Storyline since 2018 and this is the first time, I encountered this kind of comment. Can somebody shed some light to this? Explaining the technical aspect of using animation in Storyline 360 and its impact on the LMS would be a great help.
Is your boss referring to the look and feel of the course, or are they experiencing some type of delay when playing it? If you're interested in learning if your LMS will work with Articulate software, you may want to check out this article.
Videos, yes. But animations are done client side by the browser, so probably not. Like Phil says, if it actually makes any difference, it should be insignificant.
Thanks, Kelly. There were no reports of actual delay when playing the Storyline modules and all were set to the standards, SCORM and everything. It seems like it was just a personal opinion of a boss from another department who is pushing another authoring tool for the company.
My feelings exactly, Phil. The file size of the SCORM may have increased, but that does not necessitate slowing down the LMS. From the users' standpoint, I believe more in network traffic causing delay rather than from animation using Storyline.
Animation CAN slowdown performance. Just depends on how you use it. Transitions eg. for sure when often used impact quite some things. For example if your project relies on javascript in parts... a transition on a element can impact when that element is available to javascript. In general you can state... if you dont have any specific javascript in your title and use default Storyline animations...it shouldnot be a problem. If however some elements with javascript need to be triggered, well then be carefull with transitions and animations.
The impact of animation on your elearning is and should be in balance with your project. Flash like starting screens that take minutes...don't. Small Rive like animations...do.
Thank you for the info. I use Storyline's animation (entrance, exit, and move) in my slides and even put it in the Slide Master. Will that slow down the LMS? I attached a sample draft slide.
What can slow it down is authentication in the LMS. In some LMSs (very few nowadays) instead of authenticating your permissions once, they do it every single file you request, for a Storyline course this will slow you down as there are lots of parts as opposed to a video that only needs one authentication.
I was saying that the slowdown may be because the LMS is authenticating each file rather than the package, it wont have any effect on animations but this may be why you see slowdown with Storyline vs a video or another tool where the number of files is less. Already said that I didn't think that animations will have little to know effect on the size of the course.
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Hi, Ernesto! ✨
Thanks for reaching out!
Is your boss referring to the look and feel of the course, or are they experiencing some type of delay when playing it? If you're interested in learning if your LMS will work with Articulate software, you may want to check out this article.
Additionally, our Building Better Courses forum may give you some ideas or further insight on this!
It would increase the size of the file very much so shouldn't be 'heavy'
Videos, yes. But animations are done client side by the browser, so probably not. Like Phil says, if it actually makes any difference, it should be insignificant.
Thanks, Kelly. There were no reports of actual delay when playing the Storyline modules and all were set to the standards, SCORM and everything. It seems like it was just a personal opinion of a boss from another department who is pushing another authoring tool for the company.
My feelings exactly, Phil. The file size of the SCORM may have increased, but that does not necessitate slowing down the LMS. From the users' standpoint, I believe more in network traffic causing delay rather than from animation using Storyline.
Walt, I totally agree with you! I pointed out that Storyline becomes HTML5 running on the client side and not on the LMS.
They should be complaining about using too much video instead of seeing animation in HTML5 as the reason for heavy processing in the LMS.
Thank you all for affirming my thoughts.
Animation CAN slowdown performance. Just depends on how you use it. Transitions eg. for sure when often used impact quite some things. For example if your project relies on javascript in parts... a transition on a element can impact when that element is available to javascript. In general you can state... if you dont have any specific javascript in your title and use default Storyline animations...it shouldnot be a problem. If however some elements with javascript need to be triggered, well then be carefull with transitions and animations.
The impact of animation on your elearning is and should be in balance with your project. Flash like starting screens that take minutes...don't. Small Rive like animations...do.
Hi Math,
Thank you for the info. I use Storyline's animation (entrance, exit, and move) in my slides and even put it in the Slide Master. Will that slow down the LMS? I attached a sample draft slide.
of course not - it rather relieves the LMS, because the slide takes longer and it requests data less often
(the size of the Scorm package will increase only a few bytes per animation)
This kind of animations donot have any impact on performance on the LMS.
What can slow it down is authentication in the LMS. In some LMSs (very few nowadays) instead of authenticating your permissions once, they do it every single file you request, for a Storyline course this will slow you down as there are lots of parts as opposed to a video that only needs one authentication.
the number and the complexity of animations has no impact on network requests
I was saying that the slowdown may be because the LMS is authenticating each file rather than the package, it wont have any effect on animations but this may be why you see slowdown with Storyline vs a video or another tool where the number of files is less. Already said that I didn't think that animations will have little to know effect on the size of the course.