Storyline future version for multi device output?

Jun 18, 2014

Hi,

I switched from Captivate to Storyline to develop corporate eLearning courses as it is easier and more powerful than Captivate in a lot of ways.

We have a huge focus now on Responsive Design for multiple device output and the new Captivate 8 is basically a game changer in this area.

I am under pressure from members of my team to return to Captivate 8 as it allows you to simultaneously deploy to multiple devices.

I want to stay with Storyline, so can you provide any sneak peak info if you will be following suit for multiple device output?

cheers

10 Replies
Christine Hendrickson

Hi Darren,

Currently, the iPad is the only officially supported mobile device. However, many developers have successfully created content for Android and other devices. 

There may be official support for other devices with an upcoming update or future releases, but we can't guarantee that just yet. If you'd like to participate in the current betas available, I'd recommend sending an email to beta@articulate.com. That's the best way to get involved with the beta process and take part in the updates and changes coming to Storyline and other products. 

Thanks and have a great day!

Christine

Aaron Timmer

Hi Darren,

I'm in the similar situation. My team is currently testing captivate 8 and we're likely going to make the jump from Storyline. I have a customer with over 2000 users barking at me right now about courses not working on their new Nexus tablets.

I think supporting 'devices' is a losing battle. There are simply too many new devices entering the market each quarter to try and keep up with that. I can't control what my customers use. IMO responsive design is the only way forward today. I'd rather have a more simple course that works on any device than a more complex one that only works on an iPad  (and still needs an app for that).

I really like Articulate and the community is fantastic, but if Captivate 8 is everything its marketing department says it is I think we'll be forced to switch. I wish Articulate would at least layout their develop road map for us to see. The release cycles are few and far between and it's too risky to hang around and wait. It doesn't hurt that Captivate is only $20 a month too. 

Best of luck - 

Michael Hinze

Aaron Timmer said:

Hi Darren,

I'm in the similar situation. My team is currently testing captivate 8 and we're likely going to make the jump from Storyline. I have a customer with over 2000 users barking at me right now about courses not working on their new Nexus tablets.

I think supporting 'devices' is a losing battle. There are simply too many new devices entering the market each quarter to try and keep up with that. I can't control what my customers use. IMO responsive design is the only way forward today. I'd rather have more simple courses that work on any device than more complex ones that only work on an iPad  (and still need an app for that).

I really like Articulate and the community is fantastic, but if Captivate 8 is everything it's marketing department I think we'll be forced to switch by our customers actions. I wish Articulate would at least layout their develop road map for us to see. The release cycles are few and far between and it's too risk to hang around and wait. It doesn't hurt that Captivate is only $20 a month too. 

Best of luck - 


+1, You might face still challenges with CP8's responsive design setup, because of the fact that you still need to set a specific height in the three responsive design breaks, but it is certainly a HUGE step in the right direction to support mobile. I also like the mobile workflow on CP8, from design to LOCAL testing (no need to upload to some server) and using Edge Inspect to test directly on devices. It's a complete, well thought-out workflow.

Kathy Hartman

I am going crazy with the problems caused by  students trying to use different devices too.  I have actually gone back to telling students they can't use iPads, iPhone, tablets, Androids, etc.  This is not good because more and more students are using mobile devices.

I just looked at Captivate 8 and I am wondering if I should try to learn it.  I originally came to Articulate because I found Adobe presenter very hard to use.  Captivate seems to be just as hard. 

Although I absolutely love Storyline, I may have to try to learn Captivate  if Articulate isn't going to get a handle on publishing for mobile devices soon.

Darren McNeill

It is so important at the moment that we are gathering 100 Instructional Designers from all over the world to meet in one location to discuss the options for responsive design.

As we have thousands of Service Engineers who are constantly out in the field and do not "come in" regularly for training, we have to be able to push training needs to them.

Not everyone uses an iPad......

A topic for the agenda is Captivate 8 now.

We have a few members already testing it and it meets the needs, as we had a dedicated Mobile device team who were responsible for converting existing content to Mobile device usage, this will save time and costs.

Also, testing on iPads is a pain where you have to publish the story file, install the Articulate Player and then run it, and then is only if you have an iPad that accesses the corporate network. It is then hit and miss if the content is viewable and usable on a mobile device.

Market research also shows that Samsung Galaxy phones are outselling iPhones, yet they are not catered for...

Different interfaces are required for Smart phones also, so Storylines "one fits all" approach is now obsolete.

If Storyline introduces the ability to show multiple interface designs and allow real time testing for look and feel and interactivity, then it will be back in the game.

Beta testing only lets you test what has been implemented, not have an input in what the market is looking for, it is too late at that point....

Tom Lunzer

I have been using Articulate Storyline for 3 years now to develop our courses here at the IGA Coca-Cola Institute and was instrumental in our developers leaving Flash and Adobe Captivate as our main developing tool. But now that we are moving more into developing our courses for mobile devices I am looking at Adobe Captivate 9 and its responsive design features.  I would like to stay with Articulate Storyline because they have got so much right about making developing courses easier. But if the next version does not support responsive design features with mobile learning in mind, then I will probably not be able to continue with Articulate Storyline as our lead developing tool.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Tom! This thread is a bit dated.

Articulate Storyline makes it easy to deploy your content to learners with mobile devices. See answers to common questions about publishing mobile content here.

Content on responsive web pages dynamically repositions to fit different screen sizes. On a tablet, a menu might appear on the side. On a smaller phone, it might shift to the top.
 
Our view is that slide-based content shouldn't work this way, because the relative position of content matters. For example, if you build a slide with a person pointing at a map, you don’t want the map repositioned above the person’s head when the slide is viewed on a phone.
 
E-learning authoring tools that claim to be responsive actually make you manually reposition your slide content—the person and the map in this case—for every device. It’s a grueling task given the ever-growing pool of devices and form factors available to learners.
 
You should be able to develop a course once and trust it will look great on any device—without any manual tweaking. With that in mind, we're working to provide exceptional HTML5 output, responsive mobile course players for slide-based content, and responsive design for web-based content.

To understand our strategy for multi-device e-learning, see our white paper linked here.

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