My back-of-the-napkin observations of Storyline vs Captivate 5.0
Jul 12, 2012
I would love for a more knowledgeable product evangelist to respond to any of my observations and to correct me where I am wrong. I've only been experimenting with the product for a few days, thank you!
Pro’s
- The Articulate community is great. For years I’ve used the “Rapid elearning Blog” Tom Kulhman puts out for elearning and PPT inspiration and tips
- Easy to use, PPT like, interface. This would be better if it incorporated more of the PPT 2010 features.
- Ability to Pan and zoom, something Captivate users have asked for, for a long long time!
- Access to ‘people characters’ that have many different poses and expressions to make a tutorial more engaging
- Built-in alignment guides that help place objects around on a slide (a PowerPoint 2010 feature would like to see more like more transition animation)
- Access to good looking and engaging templates - a real time saver. Access to additional free templates outside of what comes with Articulate.
- Easier way to convert scorm to HTML5 for mobile device playing
- Built-in TOC frame on the module
Con’s
- Memory hog? – delayed reactions to working within Storyline, moving objects around or editing elements has delayed reaction, which will make building modules very tedious.
- Don’t see a way to set project preferences. A big loss for me! For example, I can't control how long an object shows on a slide when adding a new object. The default duration is the entire slide - ouch! Requiring me to adjust the duration for every inserted object, very time consuming!
- The captions don't automatically fade in as they do in Captivate which looks the most professional. I have to manually add this animation effect, this is time consuming.
- Doesn’t automatically zip the published file, another step to do
- No preset captions to use like Captivate offers – the caption shapes are just PPT shapes that you format, this is time consuming.
- No preset highlight object available – I use these frequently to point out important information on slides, again time consuming to have to build and format this shape for each project.
- Very limited animation functionality to apply to objects. I have a choice of 5 animations ONLY for any object – Fade, Grow, Fly In, Spin, Spin and Grow. Captivate offers numerous (see screen shot of some not all animations below). For example, I cannot add a glow animation effect in Articulate to specific text in a caption unless it’s done in PPT then imported in. I cannot make text appear to be typed in only faded in.
29 Replies
Interesting observations. Thanks!
The first two Pro's are the two of the main main ones for me. I've not tried Captivate, or Camtasia in a long time, but I wasn't a big fan of their interfaces.
And this community is worth its weight in "gold-pressed latinum." Best one I know of for an e-learning product. Makes me feel good as a developer--if I don't know something, someone here might and may respond promptly.
Of course, this is just Version 1 of Storyline versus Version 6 of Captivate. Would love to be a seer and see what Version 5 or 6 of Storyline gives us in the future and compare that with Captivate 5 or 6.
IMVHO, Articulate always aims for a "sweet spot" in terms of features and functionality. I don't believe they want to add every conceivable, esoteric power feature under the sun so only devoted, power developers end up using the tool. The tool, it seems to me, is positioned to be something beginners can use with a little learning effort and something power developers can also use and get some cool stuff done.
Yes, the lack of more animations is something that was asked for since the beta for the Storyline first began. I gotta believe we'll see more animations sooner as opposed to later.
It's interesting that you cite the PowerPoint-ness of the tool. A few folks here would like to see less reliance on PowerPoint. I have no preference as long as "easy to use" remains a priority.
As for this--" For example, I can't control how long an object shows on a slide when adding a new object. The default duration is the entire slide - ouch! Requiring me to adjust the duration for every inserted object, very time consuming! "--you can at least now set when adding a new object begins on the timeline.
Just click on the timeline time bar where you want the object to start displaying so the red scrub bar moves to that point--or move the scrub bar to that point. Then insert the new object. It'll start at the point of the scrub bar on the timeline. Then you can adjust the end time.
Like Gerry said this is just release numero uno of the product and I think that SL blows Captivate out of the water when it comes to producing output for the iPad. I may be wrong but the last time I checked (I use version 5.5) Captivate produces MP4 output for playback on the iPad so there is no interactivity. I also love the way SL handles video and like the video option for the screen recording. This is something Captivate does not have. Still would love if SL could build in pan and zoom like Camtasia.
I also think the way that Captivate handles variables and advanced actions is rather cumbersome.
I do, however, like the Closed Captioning in Captivate -The idea of having to build this type of thing manually in SL is a bit of a pain - but then again we have our great community to help us figure out an elegant solution.
Yeah captivate has a lot of different animations, but most of them are hideous. I consider myself a creative designer and I almost only ever use fade animations and motion paths. Although, I must admit I've been using the fly in animation in SL a fair bit because I'm not in love with the way the fade works. The team at Articulate has said that they are planning big things for the animation options in the next release of Storyline. I am hoping that they do more than just copy the PowerPoint animation features. As far as I am concerned, if you want to use them you can either stick with Articulate Presenter or build them in PowerPoint, save them as a video and pull them into SL.
As for the lack of auto zip feature, I don't consider this a con. There is an option right on the publish interface to zip the file so I hardly consider this a time consuming extra step. Having the option to zip or not to zip gives you way more control over how you want to package your output.
@ Gerry, I think what she's referring to is that if you have a slide that is 20sec long and when you add a new object to the screen the duration is automatically matches the timeline duration. In this example 20sec.
If you only want the object on screen for 5sec then you need to manually move the objects duration in the timeline or set the object to "play until end" then enter the duration.
I understand why SL does this inherently, but also understand form a user pov the frustration of having to manually adjust this. I've had to do it way too many times and wish i could set duration on import. The only work around I know of is to make sure you add the audio/video last.
@ Carolyn, you have some interesting points that many dev's are aware of. And, as Gerry mentioned this is a v1 product. Articulate knows about the animation limitations as I'm sure they've heard plenty from users. Animation is a subjective topic, imo though. If one needs to add so much animation maybe they should rethink the course objective. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more animation, even basic key frame/tween animation, but I've had a similar discussion w/ a dev who refuses to use SL simply because it doesn't have enough animation capabilities for them. Good luck creating that software simulation in PPT.
What kind of project prefs would you like to see?
Memory hog - I haven't seen many posts from ppl w/ memory prob. It would be nice to have the real time play back of audio/video be smoother.
Don't forget it has the format tool just like office, so you copy formatting from one object to another w/ a few simple clicks.
If you add a cue point or click the time line then insert a shape or picture it will start at the cue point. Not exactly what you want but may help a little
I would love to be able set project preferences before I start a course, e.g. font, colours etc
Also agree with Nancy I dont want a rehash of powerpoint animations, there is a point where they have to stop copying ppt.
I have a long list of things, here are a few
I would like bounce and elasticity on all animations, so I could bounce a menu after it falls into place (nice and subtle)
I would love some text based animations so
e.g. you hit a button to calculate and it cycles through the numbers
A 3D flip animation, such as flipping a card or tile that has an image on the back
A hinge animation items hinge in like a door but I can choose where the hinge is e.g. top, left, right, bottom
Any of the animations you see used on news reports, animations as used in final cut pro, it would be great to have morphing as well
Of course the irony in this comparison of tools is that many of those who create the original Captivate (RoboHelp?) now work for Articulate. I'd like to think they'd learned from that and have improved many things with both Screenr and Storyline.
Thanks!
And I'll spare everyone my wish for Ken Burns-like effects . . .
+ 1 for morphing.
Oh and don't get me wrong. Captivate is a good tool. I just like Storyline better.
Thank you everyone for your informative and interesting responses, it's nice to meet you all. I appreciate your interest in my post!
After reading your responses, the burning question for me is - if some of these SL developers are former Adobe Captivate developers AND with authoring tools on the market for years now - why would Articulate launch v1 without some functionality that should have been a no-brainer to stay competitive? Gerry I agree with you, I would position this product as a tool for beginners. Other than the people characters, the ready-made interactive templates, the easier way to set up branching (variables) and how easy it is to publish to mobile devices, I think Captivate is still a better product for power developers. At least in SL's v1 state. There are just too many time consuming obstacles that I feel would impede a developer.
Gerry that does help, that I can control the start time ofan inserted object – thanks!
Nancy, good to know about the quality on the iPad. I only use a handful of the animations but the ones I use I think are great! I need to check out Presenter. Oh you can do all that SL does in terms of full motion recording. Captivate also offers the ability to merge two recordings in addition to splicing one, didn't see how that's done in SL.
Bill, in regards to your comment, “If one needs to add so muchanimation maybe they should rethink the course objective.” I don’t put too much animation in my modulesjust where it creates necessary emphasis and where it might improve engagement, critical to the learning experience. I agree, too much animation is counter-productive. In terms of the kinds of project preferences I would like to see - set and control slide duration of inserted objects (captions, images etc.) and set default animation of inserted captions to fade in and out.
Phil – I love your list of animations, did you get those ideasfrom Apple’s Keynote product by chance? I've seen some wonderful presentations created from Keynote that utilizes those animations. I am SO on-board with that! Morphing, hinging, they are great!
So net net to me anyway is that SL is a good product for beginners and for publishing to mobile devices. I need to check out Presenter to see how it compares to SL. Thanks everyone!
Hi Carolyn - I think you misunderstood Gerry's comment. He didn't say SL was for beginners, he said it was simple for beginners to learn and powerful enough for advanced users. After seeing what folks are creating, I have to agree
One of the technicalities of SL is the output to html5. My guess is that this might be a factor for the limited animation capabilities currently?
Maybe someone from Articulate could chime in on the topic.
Carolyn, probably I love Keynote, I also love the way they do motion paths so intuitive and so easy
Carla - OK thanks for clarifying. I just find the product a little frustrating as there are these GREAT progressive features and no consideration for what I call non-negotiable features - like project preferences or an object style manager. I know that this is also just learning how to get from pt A to B in a new way, a different paradigm.
Actually teh first elearning I ever "built" was in keynote and then published to flash
Bill I said this same thing during the beta, and was promised that this was not the reason. If you look at Quizmaker which is what storyline was built on top of, the animations are exactly the same and this would not publish to HTML5.
I think the developers felt the animations were sufficient and it was a bit of a shock when we started asking for animations. I know from my experience when I reported a bug and spoke with the developers they really wanted real world applications for the feature requests. I just think this one passed them by. I wonder how many feature request there were for extra animations in quizmaker this may have influenced the decision, I know I never thought I needed anymore.
I can't speak for Articulate but in my experience whenever you develop a new piece of software (and I led development of internal learning systems before LMS's became popular), you have X number of features that you would ideally like to do--but, in the real world. you can only implement Y number of features for a first release, especially for software as deep and complicated as this one. You don't have the luxury of developing something perfect and encompassing everything right "out of the gate"--that'd take years--and a company needs income to make money, pay salaries, fuel future development, etc. Software has to get out the door and get in users' hands to grow and develop further.
That said, for v1, I think Articulate did a tremendous, fantastic job. Gamechanging. Oh, each of us can carp about which of our fave features was left out in v1 but at the end of the day, Articulate has to decide what can be done in a first release and what has to wait for the future. That's how software development works sometimes.
In addition, the tool is designed for no intense programming and guides you through things, a combination of form-driven and freeform. That type of software takes longer to develop and get right but is sorely needed. Articulate should be commended for taking that approach and championing it with their products in the industry.
I view Captivate as a primarily a software simulation and capture tool that has, over time, added more general e-learning authoring features.
Storyline, on the other hand, seems to me designed first to be a general e-learning authoring tool that lets you do do almost all kinds of e-learning. For me, it's the Swiss Army Knife for e-learning development. Again, it offers a sweet spot set of features that make sense to have initially.
As a result, I also think its future is extremely bright. The design approach Articulate is taking is spot on. The further maturation of Storyline will be exciting to watch--and rewarding for us who use it.
I used to be a LMS/e-learning manager for a major corporation before I took early retirement. So I tend to look at authoring tools from that viewpoint. An organization needs tools for e-learning development since often courses have to be done internally by folks of various skill levels. You cannot afford outsourcing all the e-learning that you need to external developers so internal folks have to be able to produce some. So you needs tools that are easy and powerful--and your developers need great support and the ability to grow and learn. You need tools that most people could use--and Storyline does that and also gives us more power.
So in that context, Storyline makes far better sense for an organization to adopt than Captivate, IMVHO. Ease of use, coupled with power, is needed and Storyline delivers that in spades. While I also think Captivate is a great tool, I would never adopt it in an organization as a general "do-it-all" tool. Of course, YMMV.
Also, now combined with the Articulate suite, you have a beginning to intermediate toolset (the Articulate Suite) for beginners and an intermediate-to-advanced tool (Storyline) for more power developers. And, the Suite and Storyline work together (granted, that's only one-way for now) and also with PowerPoint. That's a tremendous selling point and advantage.
I also think it's wise for an organization to adopt Storyline as a corporate tool and then demand that any outsourced course developed by external developers be developed in it or with the Suite. When I managed our LMS, we did not adopt the approach of we'd support content developed by any tool. We endorsed and supported only a core set of tools and expected content to be developed by vendors with the corporate-endorsed tools. Any approach other than that is support madness, IMVHO.
Storyline gives average users the ability to do more powerful things and lets the power developers do more than they could before with tools like Articulate Presenter. It's a great step forward for e-learning development. And with the ease of importing Storyline interactions and things developed by others developers with their courses into your Storyline courses is a great benefit.
I've dealt with Adobe support and resources and I've dealt with Articulate's. With Articulate I feel like I'm dealing with real human beings who get learning. With Adobe, I feel like I'm dealing with some cold and mysterious corporate entity. Tom, David, Jeanette, Brian, Justin, Peter, and the other Articulate folks who hang out here and post free resources here in the Community bring tremendous value after the sale. No one does it better than them, IMVHO.
That was awesome, Gerry.
@Carolyn - One thing you could do as you evaluate Storyline, is take an existing course you built and re-build it in Storyline. That way you're focusing less on the content and more on workflow.
And if you're ever interested, I'd be more than willing to help you with workflow and developing in Storyline.
Gerry, the product lacks not what I deem “nice to have’s” but “must have's”. Re:your point on the natural course of a new software product…that’sgreat for Articulate and makes sense to me, but doesn’t help my nitch customer group. That’s fine, can’t please everybody I guess.
Re: your commentabout form-driven and free form…I see it as utilizing PPT like shapes and PPT formattingabilities. Besides, Free form seems to go directly against Articulate’sapproach – simplified ready-made developing. The #1 objective any company should meet with an authoringtool - is the ability for rapid deployment. I think SL hits the mark in some ways and inother ways does not.
I agree that Captivate is primarily a software simulationtool, in fact that’s how Adobe marketed it in the beginning with the option topurchase some other Adobe product can't recall name right now. I agree that SL’sdesign approach is a game changer and I’m glad for the direction they aretaking, but feel a great opportunity is being missed here! Here's a chance for Captivate customers like myself who are looking for new things like ready-made templates, people characters, PAN AND ZOOM (ugh!!) and a prettier interface to transition to a new company but won't because of the things I mentioned that take me too much time to manage.
I wouldn’t agree that SL delivers power inspades I think that's one pt we disagree on. Not having the simple power to create defaults is one example. This could be that perfect easy to use product that has a short learning curve that corporations could purchase saving a lot of money outsourcing but I feel like a few things are missing!
Yes. I’ve heard so many great things about Articulate support, Ihope as the company grows, that doesn’t change.
On that note, David Anderson I would love to take you up on your offer before my trial period runs out. I bet you'd change my opinion on your product. How do we go about that?
Many thanks!
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