I usually build out my computer simulations by recording the screen and then breaking the video out into separate images. I have a internal client who will not allow me to record their screen but will provide screenshots of each screen to complete the process. Has anyone ever created a simulation / interaction with just screenshots? I want to create a "try me" interaction but I'm not sure that would be possible with the screenshots they provide. Any advice is most appreciated.
Essentially a simulation is a screenshot with hyperlinks to another screenshot.
At it's core, you insert a screenshot, put a hotspot over the image where the person needs to click, and then a trigger to the next screen.
You can also use the insert mouse feature to simulate a cursor. The cursor stays in position from slide to slide.
What you need is the customer to send good screenshots. I'd have them record a high quality video screencast at a high resolution. Then extract the frames you need. That means you'll get what you need.
Only working with screenshots (or a screencast as Tom mentioned) is certainly not ideal, but it is doable. Here is blog post about software simulations in Storyline; the examples listed in the post were created from screenshots.
I have done this--I actually prefer it if the software is changing a lot because it can be easier to swap out 1 screen-shot rather than re-record the process every time something changes in the software.
As Tom and Michael said, the basic idea is to hyperlink from one screen-shot to the next. One key to making this work well is to ensure that all screen-shots are the same size. There's a free Windows tool called "sizer" that allows you to set a window to specific size (say, 640 x 480, or 800 x 600, or whatever you decide is best). Ask your client to size the window to your preferred size, go through the process steps, and take a screen capture of the whole window at each step. In this case, a "step" is any change to the screen. So clicking the File menu is a step. Hovering over the New entry in the open File menu is a step. Clicking the New entry in the open File menu is a step. You get the idea. It's a bit tedious, but not complicated. You just brute-force your way through it.
Once you have this stack of screen captures, you can link them together by putting clickable hotspots over each menu item, etc. With all the captures taken at the same size, you'll be able to just jump from one to the next as the learner clicks through the hotspots and everything should line up perfectly.
If you need to accept text input from the learner, you can use Storyline's text input fields, validate that the input is correct, and only when it is correct you can take the learner to the next screen.
When I needed to scroll, things got a little more complicated. I would construct a tall image by pasting a set of overlapping screen captures together in Photoshop, fixing up the scrollbar (again, in Photoshop), and the using a motion path to scroll the tall image up or down as needed. To make this illusion convincing, you'll need to cut out the "frame" around the scrolling part and paste it over the top so that it looks like only the center part of the image scrolls.
Anyway, it basically comes down to a lot detail-oriented work to line things up and keep track of how each hotspot links to each new screen capture. But it's not that hard conceptually.
3 Replies
Essentially a simulation is a screenshot with hyperlinks to another screenshot.
At it's core, you insert a screenshot, put a hotspot over the image where the person needs to click, and then a trigger to the next screen.
You can also use the insert mouse feature to simulate a cursor. The cursor stays in position from slide to slide.
What you need is the customer to send good screenshots. I'd have them record a high quality video screencast at a high resolution. Then extract the frames you need. That means you'll get what you need.
Only working with screenshots (or a screencast as Tom mentioned) is certainly not ideal, but it is doable. Here is blog post about software simulations in Storyline; the examples listed in the post were created from screenshots.
I have done this--I actually prefer it if the software is changing a lot because it can be easier to swap out 1 screen-shot rather than re-record the process every time something changes in the software.
As Tom and Michael said, the basic idea is to hyperlink from one screen-shot to the next. One key to making this work well is to ensure that all screen-shots are the same size. There's a free Windows tool called "sizer" that allows you to set a window to specific size (say, 640 x 480, or 800 x 600, or whatever you decide is best). Ask your client to size the window to your preferred size, go through the process steps, and take a screen capture of the whole window at each step. In this case, a "step" is any change to the screen. So clicking the File menu is a step. Hovering over the New entry in the open File menu is a step. Clicking the New entry in the open File menu is a step. You get the idea. It's a bit tedious, but not complicated. You just brute-force your way through it.
Once you have this stack of screen captures, you can link them together by putting clickable hotspots over each menu item, etc. With all the captures taken at the same size, you'll be able to just jump from one to the next as the learner clicks through the hotspots and everything should line up perfectly.
If you need to accept text input from the learner, you can use Storyline's text input fields, validate that the input is correct, and only when it is correct you can take the learner to the next screen.
When I needed to scroll, things got a little more complicated. I would construct a tall image by pasting a set of overlapping screen captures together in Photoshop, fixing up the scrollbar (again, in Photoshop), and the using a motion path to scroll the tall image up or down as needed. To make this illusion convincing, you'll need to cut out the "frame" around the scrolling part and paste it over the top so that it looks like only the center part of the image scrolls.
Anyway, it basically comes down to a lot detail-oriented work to line things up and keep track of how each hotspot links to each new screen capture. But it's not that hard conceptually.
Good luck with your project.
Cheers!
-Ray
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