Object states for navigation page & content completion sequence order

Jan 20, 2020

Joel Thomas
By Joel Thomas

Hi there everyone,

I have been fiddling with object states for my navigation page for what seems like days and gone a wee bit insane. I have read/watched all the tutorials and discussions here but can't work it out. Just hoping someone smarter than me might be able to help!

I have attached the slid/s I am trying to get to work. Also published to Articulate review > https://360.articulate.com/review/content/948053cd-6c1f-4c03-80a8-3410164195ab/review if required.

It is a navigation page which the end user will return to after they complete each section.

I think I have gotten the normal, hover, down and selected states correct but the visited state is showing the white tick as soon as you click it (before it is actually visited) and I need to show the tick only after the end user has completed that section and has been returned to the navigation page.

The second issue which I can't work out is that I have been instructed to have the end user do each section in sequence order so they can't jump ahead. Sequence is 1,2,3 (the top line from left to right) and 4, 5 and 6 (the bottom line from left to right) but I can't figure out how to make the navigation page to do that with the states.

Once the end user has completed the entire eLearn, on the final slide they are given the option of revisiting the navigation page to "refresh" themselves and when they visit for the final time all the navigation box links need to be available for the user to select any and visit that area (no sequence this time).

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very appreciative and grateful.

Thank you very much!  - Joel :) 

3 Replies
Jerry Beaucaire
4 years ago01/20/20 at 6:48 pm (UTC)

This is a design issue with Navigation slides.   Since Articulate can't know which slide the user might select, it doesn't usually preload the next slide like it can in a normal linear design.   So the VISITED state has time to show onscreen while Articulate is queuing up the selected slides.

So, we use a different state, one of our own.  I duplicated all your VISITED states and called them DONE.  Then I deleted the VISITED states since they aren't doing what you want.

  1. I set the Navigation slides options to RESET TO INITIAL STATE when revisiting.  The will cause all the triggers we're going to create to work.
  2. I created 6 True/False variables to help us know when a user reaches the end of a required content slide.  1IntroDone, 2CartelsDone, etc.
  3. I add a trigger to each of the content slides to set these variables to TRUE when the timeline ends on those slides.  I also made sure that trigger occurred before the JUMP to Navigation trigger that also happens when the timeline ends. (order of triggers counts!)
  4. Then I added 6 triggers to the start of the Navigation slide to change the state of each picture to DONE when the Navigation timeline starts if the associated variable for that picture is also set to TRUE.

That did it.  Now it is doing what I believe you wanted.

Joel Thomas
4 years ago01/20/20 at 11:09 pm (UTC)

Hi Jerry,

Thank you so much for your generosity in taking the time to help me and compile this file! That is very kind of you.

It is exactly what I was looking to do and I am very grateful for your assistance. It's quite a learning curve to get things like this to work so I really appreciate it. I'm going to study the file now and work out how you have done it.

It's weird that Articulate doesn't address how to set up forcing the end user to a complete sequenced learning journey as it is a big ticket item for eLearning. 

Once again - thank you Jerry! Much appreciated.

Joel :)

Jerry Beaucaire
4 years ago01/20/20 at 11:34 pm (UTC)

Glad to help.

I believe Articulate has done the right thing, giving us very flexible and diverse building blocks from which we can design almost any kind of learning experience we can imagine.   The more they try to do for us in terms of end-user-experience, the less flexible the tool becomes.

But that's my two cents.

It's certainly a learning curve, but once you get the things that are important to you past that curve, it gets fun!

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