Storyline 3

Jan 22, 2016

Hi,

I'm just wondering if there are any plans for Storyline 3 and if so, what are some of the proposed features?

Thanks.

 

28 Replies
Christie Pollick

Hi, Frank -- Thanks so much for your question! Unfortunately, we don't announce product roadmaps or release dates for new products/features or updates. You are welcome to share your thoughts on features you'd like to see by submitting a feature request here as those go directly to our product development team.

Also, I'd suggest that you subscribe to the Word of Mouth Blog for updates on Articulate products and also follow us on Facebook or Twitter to stay up to date.

Chris Reynolds

I find the lack of roadmaps unfortunate. We have upgraded our dev boxes and find that Storyline 2 doesn't seem able to take advantage of the new power. Simple tasks like grabbing the corner of a text box to resize require holding the mouse for about a second before dragging.

Without a roadmap, we can only assume that Storyline 2 will not evolve between now and then. We don't even know whether Storyline is under active development and so our planning acknowledges the risk that Storyline might never gain the features we expect to need in 12, 24 or 36 months time.

I urge Articulate to reconsider their stance on roadmaps.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Chris,

The delayed performance you're seeing is not something we'd expect, so I'd be curious if you've been able to connect with our Support team or would like to reach out to them here so we could take a better look at the behavior and offer any additional assistance. 

The roadmap questions is certainly one that has been brought up here, and Storyline remains under active development and our team is continually looking at fixes and features and you can see the latest of what we've done in Storyline 2 by reviewing the release notes here. In addition to our continued support of our existing products - we're always looking towards new things as well - so once we're able to share any of that information I hope you'll be as excited as we are. :) 

Ron San

i agree too.

After having built a 8hr course as per client needs in Storyline, i find myself drifting away from it.

Storyline is still a good product.
However, I now realize how painful it is to create a highly engaging, interactive and personalized course. It just takes a lot more time than it should. The main culprit is the way triggers have been architected. Because each trigger only does one action, we have to define a million of them. There is hardly any functionality to efficiently manage/navigate through triggers, e.g. cant search in triggers, cant group them in collapsible categories, cant turn them on/off. This means if you have several dozen triggers on a slide (common on certain heavy slides because of all the interactivity and dynamism) you get lost in just navigating through them. Working with triggers is sluggish. There are also eccentricities like if you paste a new trigger it always goes at the bottom of the queue. It is painful to move them up - one at a time.

The course development environment is just too heavy to use for anyone who does not want to devote entire professional life working the tool. I would rather spend more time doing ID than fight with the software.

Developing a product in secrecy is so last decadish. In today's Agile world of time-bound (useful) releases, Articulate's approach is archaic. Not knowing when, if at all, release 3 will come out and which major areas of improvement to expect, prevents us to plan our efforts. This is no small thing. There is no guidance on which areas to expect improvement on in future.

And its not just lack of visibility. I am also disappointed by lack of innovation.

If you study the release notes, you realize that its been close to 18 months (maybe more) since any useful feature was added. All recent updates are only about bug fixes- the bugs that were not even supposed to be in the release considering it takes them ~4 years to do a major release.

Also, I don't sense any desire to help developers save time. There is a dire need to re-imagine Trigger architecture. We should also be allowed to import slides and maybe even triggers from ms excel templates- atleast shells. This is just an idea to make the point that out of the box thinking is required to reduce the amount of time it takes to make EFFECTIVE elearning courses.

Then there is the problem of persistent storage. We need to rely on unreliable hacks to store course data in real-time to a database in order to track in-flight actions, mine this data to fine-tune the ID, and report on it to our stakeholders.

Storyline is a good product, but i am afraid Articulate doesnt seem to be nimble and agile enough for the current pace of technological development, and change in customer preferences.

Hopefully this will change.

I hope the response to this post is not just another request to create more feature requests. While I see the value on hearing from the users, I hope there are people in the product team who have the vision and foresight to keep the product ahead by atleast a few steps of what we need.

 

Alexandra Masche

I just stumble over this post.

I agree with Chris Reynolds and Ron San. Articulate is not transparent in what they are doing. In terms of new version as well as their feature and bug  management. It is hard to be in a development process and not to know if a bugfix ever will come or not. It forces everybody to look for a costly workaround or not to realize a part of the project. 

Some bugs we reported are evaluated as missing features, which made me think that they have little chance to be realized only.

We also had the need of a public bugtracker. Reporting bugs costs time. How helpful it would be, to see, which bug was already reported.

I hope articulate is and gets even more open for the user feedback. Despite all drawbacks storyline is still on of the best authoring tools out there - for my point of view.

Stevie V

I'd like to add Storyline is my bread and butter and I'm giving the devs the benefit of the doubt that making the next best thing isn't easy, especially when they want to do it right. Even with no major upgrade two years in, Storyline is still by far the most intuitive option. I do wish a Mac or iPad Pro app is soon coming to really wow us, plus new features we all have been pining for. Sending you all positive energy. Keep at it. 

Robert Stewart

Let us hope the rumors are correct on Storyline3 being pure CSS html5 webpages and FLASH is dead. Hell, I can animate using transitions and transforms better and JavaScript can do circle around triggers if slides and variables are exposed. If not, then fix the web Object to refresh (me and thousand others have been asking for 4 years now).

Mark Stauffer

At the Articulate booth at DevLearn 2015 we saw glimpses of version 3 and how it would do responsive design. At that time they were saying that v3 could be out sometime in Q1 - around the March 2016 timeframe. Not seeing anything yet and not being told what possibilities may be around the corner is disconcerting. I love Storyline and use it everyday, but i do wish it had more capabilities, especially with regard to triggers as Ron San mentioned. Just hoping we hear something SOON! I'm not able to attend DevLearn this year, so if anyone is going, please let us know what you find out from the folks at the Articulate booth. Thanks!

Chris Reynolds

Sorry Ashley but that answer doesn't fill me with hope. I'm looking for a reliable stream of information so that I can advise our managers which platforms we should be using to develop and maintain our eLearning portfolio.

If the information is not confidential (as is inferred by the fact that the devs'll chat in person) then why can't it be published online or provided to license holders?

I can't justify spending over AU$1200 on flights, plus accommodation & expenses and take a week out of work to travel half way around the world to have an informal chat with someone who might or might not give me the information that I'm after.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Chris, 

We don't share the product roadmap or information publicly, in person or virtually. The team who is attending DevLearn is demoing Articulate 360 which was released last week and so no need to spend the money to head to Vegas - no sneak peaks at more info there, just a lot of folks really excited about our current offerings! 

If you'd like to discuss with our Success team, virtually or a live phone chat, you can always reach out to them here. 

Chris Lynn

Ashley,

 

I have reached out to sales, as you suggest.  

We are currently undergoing a hardware refresh, and are needing a solution to the Hi-Rez screen issue to Storyline 2.  As I've discussed with your colleague Jennifer via email;  We cannot Justify the cost of 360 compared to what we are spending for Adobe CC.  360 is a much less mature, less broad and deep in function nor, as complete a suite as CC.  While understanding that 360 specializes in e-learning even the Review function is not as useful as CC in being a fully functional collaboration and content management tool.  

Also, even If we were to pay for 360, we cannot stop using/paying for CC, as 360 doesn't have the editing tools needed for polished e-learning content.  Does that make sense?

That's why we're in need of info regarding perpetual licensing availability for SL3.  Management does not have the appetite for another more expensive licensed suite. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Thanks

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Chris,

Thank you for sharing here and reaching out to Jennifer as well. I can empathize with your position, and I wish I had information to share in regards to the date or timeline that we'd expect to have the next perpetual version, but we honestly don't have that information yet. I promise it's not just us being coy or subversive. 

If you didn't already, please share with Jennifer the types of editing tools you currently use in Adobe CC that you'd like to see in Articulate 360. That's the type of information our team is actively seeking to know what items our 360 Development team needs to focus on for the continued updates that are too come. 

If there is anything I can do from a Support perspective, please feel free to let me know. 

Chris Lynn

Ashley,

 

Thanks for the reply.

In CC we use:  Photoshop, Premiere, Edge Animate, Audition, Indesign, Illustrator, and Media Encoder.

I don't believe 360 has equivalent options for these tools.  Yes, there are some basic editing functions but, not full featured tools.  That's where we're seeing the gap in function, especially considering the cost comparison.  Does that make sense?

Regards,

Chris

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Chris, 

Articulate 360 doesn't have the same functionality for editing photos/images or video/media elements as Adobe within tools such as Photoshop, Audition or Illustrator - but those are for a different audience and deployment than an interactive e-learning course. I'm not familiar with all the tools in the Adobe suite, but the comparison between our current course building/authoring tools is more closely connected to Captivate. 

I did want to share a link to Brian's response here in regards to cost comparisons and what our team looked at in terms or pricing Articulate 360. 

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