How did you learn Storyline? What were your pain points?
Apr 28, 2015
I'm going to be training on Storyline soon, and I wanted to put together something that would get learners started quickly but effectively.
If you're currently learning Storyline, I'd love to hear your answers too!
So I had a few questions :) answer as many or as little as you want:
- How did you learn Storyline? (I know a lot of our answers will be "I just started working in it!" but did you have a specific project you needed to build and/or were there people around you who could help?)
- Besides any initial "getting started!" tutorials, which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up?
- What were some of your initial pain points? and/or what did you want to be able to do quickly and didn't know how to?
- What were some of your aha! moments? (For example, one of mine was button sets weirdly)
- What did your first project look like?
- How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence?
Thanks all!
BONUS ROUND! Follow up questions:
What do you wish you knew sooner? This doesn't necessarily need to be a "pain point" - just something where you were like, "oh! I can do that in Storyline?" or similar. For example, mine was probably cue points :)
What resources have you used to become "advanced" in Storyline? Or perhaps, how advanced are you trying to go?
What came first: Instructional Design or Development? Were you an instructional designer that wanted to start developing, or were you a developer first? I started with Storyline myself, and learned instructional design along the way.
31 Replies
Great post Rachel! I'd love to chime in:
How did you learn Storyline? I was assigned to work on two e-Learning courses and the client used SL in the past and wanted to continue to use SL in case they'd need to change content quickly, someone on their team knew the tool enough to do this. Personally, I grew up learning and working in PPT so the interface and features of PPT blended right into SL, making it a smooth transition. I also am an avid user of Lynda.com and watched the SL tutorials for things such as triggers, states, layers, etc.
Which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up? As stated above, I began with leveraging my PPT knowledge and watching the Lynda.com tutorials. Then I discovered the e-Learning Heroes blog and utilized the community for the rest of my learning.
What were some of your initial pain points? Choosing a color palette for e-Learning is a struggle I have on a daily basis! Community members offered great resources to help combat this. Audio playing after an interaction is complete @Mike Enders helped me tremendously on this but I don't think it was ever resolved. Basically, I had a base layer with audio, 4 layers with audio and another base layer audio I wanted to play after each layer was visited. Number variables for a drag and drop knowledge check. This community also has helped me with head scratchers dealing with Adobe Captivate.
What were some of your aha! moments? True and false variables! They truly are super easy and fun to use. It just takes some trial and error.
What did your first project look like? Lots of tractors :). Looking back, I would definitely do things differently. I'm learning and as a new ISD, this community is the best place to gain knowledge.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence? A solid year of working within the tool. I think there's always going to be times where you can be confident you know and understand the tool through and through but every time in the tool can be a new experience and offer those "aha!" moments!
A nice forum I must say. I was assigned to lead a project with Storyline. My job was to manage the project and get the work done from my team. I got involved in using storyline when we were facing an audio issue on the project and my team was having a hard time finding it. So I decided help the team myself.
After this incident I've just explored the software. I've just learnt mostly by exploring the software and trying to meet the requirments of our clients. To tell you each day with a new requirement from the client, I still learn stuff that I can do in Storyline. :)
Hi Rachel
I am definitely a newbie too and am currently designing and building my first elearn whilst learning Storyline on the job. My first project is an elearn for a payroll self service tool for our employees. I plan to use screen recordings to demonstrate.
I am definitely finding the learning curve is steep and a somewhat frustrating as I want to produce things quicker than my current ability will allow. I am finding the tutorials very useful. The pain point is for me are triggers, states, layers and now trying to learn variables. Im working through it trialling and testing different things.
I am confident using Powerpoint so I hope I can start to master the other stuff by just getting in and playing with it.
would love to hear your progress.
@Katrina -
Definitely leverage the Storyline showcase examples for creative ways to amp-up your content! Also, software simulations can be recorded as a single video or step-by-step slides.
Good luck! Keep us posted :).
For those of us who were around during Storyline's initial beta, you know how we all learned Storyline from each other.
Tom, Jeanette, and I were working on the getting started tutorials (So glad the talented David Fair is over all tech tutorials today) and we just played around with SL to see what we could build. It really wasn't until users started sharing their work that we all knew there was something special in Storyline.
For example, where would something like Scratch-N-Win ever be possible:
I downloaded the free trial but I didn't have any specific projects to work on. I didn't look at any tutorials during the whole time I did the trial. I just sort of played around and tried to figure things out. The one thing I couldn't figure out were state changes. I had no idea where they were!
The first thing I looked up was state changes. I couldn't find them for the life of me, let alone understand how they worked. Other than that I looked up a lot of tutorials on using variables.
Variables, hands down. I remember working on adding to a score, it was easy to display text but I couldn't figure out how to add points. When I look back on it I feel ridiculous but you have to start somewhere.
Using the position function on images in state changes. I would copy and paste the image but for some reason it would never place exactly where I wanted it. I don’t know how I forgot to look for the position to get the image in the exact spot, then you notice a lot of the time it will be 0,0. ALSO, one of my best finds was using silence after a trigger to cause a pause before something happens on screen.
A hot mess. No, not totally. My first project was very basic, basically just clicking on things to reveal things on other layers. Nothing too crazy.
I think after playing around in it for a weekend you can say you are a novice. I felt really comfortable with it after about 5 Storyline based ELearning Challenges and 2 larger projects. The main thing anyone should know is that they can master the tool in a few weeks if they put in about a hour a day (maybe even less). When you do one project and wait weeks to work on something else you really won't be building your skills quickly. I have dozens of files where I basically just try to conquer doing one thing. Hours of frustration will eventually amount to you being a Storyline whiz.
How did you learn Storyline? I originally learned Presenter six years ago and Storyline was just a more robust upgrade of that.
Which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up? I watched David Anderson's, Tom Kuhlmann's and Jeanette Brookes Screenrs as well as David Fair's and Stephanie Harnett's and learned a lot from them. I even made some of my own Screenrs on Presenter, and a lot of those ideas have been translated to Storyline.
What were some of your initial pain points? It took me a while to fully understand variables when they first came out.
What were some of your aha! moments? When I have a cool idea that I want to try, I find that it can't always be executed the way that I had envisioned. A lot of times I mull over in my mind how I can get Storyline to do what I would like it to do. Whenever I figure out something that had me stumped, it is an aha moment, and/or a happy dance moment.
What did your first project look like? I can't remember my first Storyline project, my first Presenter project was on ladder safety. It used cartoon figures from a workbook that I animated. I was hooked.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence? I don't remember exactly, not long. Storyline didn't take very long to learn (except variables). I learned a lot by seeing what others were making and if I got into a jam, I just asked the community for help.
Great questions!
I did have a lot of time working in Articulate Studio so I had to get used to working with the layers and object states. These simply don't exist in powerpoint. I was part of the Beta team so no tutorials from the start. I started trying to build out basic interactions and recreating existing courses built in other tools to figure out how to do stuff.
Practice is everything. If you don't have projects jump into the Articulate Challenges. There is no better way to get some working experience.
I love to check out other peoples source files as well. It's how I learned Studio and the best way to learn Storyline. You see something and can peek under the hood how it's done. I always try to rebuild it myself to make sure I remember how it's done (plus I download the files and store them for later reference)
So go out and practice!
I agree, Jeff! I forgot to mention deconstructing other peoples files, that one is right up there with the ELH Challenges.
How did you learn Storyline? I was on the first Storyline beta team and we all just spent a lot of time messing around with it and finding out what we could do. We broke it a number of times but in doing so we also came up with some cool stuff. I think I learned mostly from what others shared in that forum.
Besides any initial "getting started!" tutorials, which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up? David and Jeanette's videos were great. Arlyn had a lot of introductory ones for the beta team which got me thinking and experimenting.
What were some of your initial pain points? and/or what did you want to be able to do quickly and didn't know how to? Understanding how (and when) to use variables was probably my biggest hurdle. I came from a print design background so the idea of layers wasn't new. States that you could create on your own i.e., weren't just the standard hover, selected, down, etc., were something that was new but once I realized their power it was eye opening.
What were some of your aha! moments? Button sets is a great example. Figuring out how powerful you could make navigation by using variables was another.
What did your first project look like? Perhaps foolishly I jumped right in with a big, important compliance project. It was based on an earlier PPT version but rebuilt from the ground up in SL using variables to set regional preferences and navigation. As an exercise I rebuilt all of the Engage interactions in the original version as SL slides and that was a great challenge. I'm happy to say that everything worked out fine and we delivered this major project right on schedule with no hiccups.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence? I wanted to put it on my resume when it was still in Beta! I think it just felt like a natural to me and took to it right away. I had been looking for a way to move away from PPT and Storyline was it. I'm always learning new things about it, which is great, but I felt pretty confident using it early on, especially once I had the concept of variables down.
My initial project in Storyline was a big 5 module course for my previous employer. There was someone else on staff who had worked in it before but, honestly, I think I learned most from working and looking at the community forums where most of my questions had already been answered. When they hadn't, I posted.
That first project was really, really pretty. It had a GPS theme that we carried all the way through and I loved how easy it was to work in Storylines. But right from the beginning, I knew something was really off with the instructional design. It was a page turner with lots of content and bullet points and voiceovers; the only thing that kept me from being bored to death was the enjoyment of the actual development.
So that was when I figured that there had to be a better way to design courses and got into the instructional design field!
Thanks for all the answers so far! They're super helpful. Please feel free to add any additional comments, such as training or books that you found really helpful, or other practices that really helped you.
How did you learn Storyline? (I know a lot of our answers will be "I just started working in it!" but did you have a specific project you needed to build and/or were there people around you who could help?) I landed an internship with a group who was developing eLearning for the state. I came from a computer programming background, so I didn't know anything about articulate and even less about eLearning in general. I decided that if I was going to be doing this that I was going to dive right into it, so I tasked myself with building a full course from start to finish on the subject of eLearning and educating adults. It taught me a lot, not just about articulate storyline but also about effective eLearning. It was a very good experience and after that I felt comfortable to jump right into developing a real course.
Besides any initial "getting started!" tutorials, which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up? Because of the whole computer programing thing I immediately sought out how I could incorporate the skills i already had into this type of work. Luckily I found that you could create JavaScript triggers and that's where I started seeking out tutorials on all the stuff you could do with JS in Articulate Storyline.
What were some of your initial pain points? and/or what did you want to be able to do quickly and didn't know how to? I think that figuring out design strategies and building effective interactions were very hard for me in the beginning. I felt limited by not having more variable types and generally making it hard to run and test code, but having more limitations makes you have to think outside the box, so I think those straggles ended up benefiting me immensely! Plus I didn't come from a graphics design or education background so I struggled with just making things look good on screen and making them engaging.
What were some of your aha! moments? (For example, one of mine was button sets weirdly) Figuring out that when you have a slide master layer show when the timeline starts then when you load it onto a slide it puts the Slide Master layer on top of everything was a game changer. Its pretty much the bedrock for the course im currently building.
What did your first project look like? No transitions/animations and way more variables, layers, states, and objects on screen then there really needed to be. It seriously takes forever to publish because of all the objects because I didn't know there was a crop function in SL2. If I remove the branding i might go ahead and post a link to it here.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence? After three months and i was comfortable enough to include it on a resume.
As Jeff said, participate in the weekly elearning Challenges. We never know what subject David will throw at us, so you will find yourself outside of your comfort zone and you will do new things that you wouldn't normally do, and therefore, your skills will improve. You'll be inspired by what others create, you'll connect with the Articulate Community and you'll end up with some great examples for your portfolio. WIN-WIN-WIN!
@Linda and @Jeff,
I'm making it a goal of mine to participate in the challenges! This will help not only my skills as a developer, but also hosting lunch and learns for staff members.
Great Katie, see you there!
How did you learn Storyline? I signed up for the first beta and started working with Storyline before any of the tutorials existed so had to learn the basics on my own. The way I decided to approach this was to take a project that I had previously developed in Lectora and tried to recreate it in Storyline. This got me up to speed pretty quickly. The rest I learned from the beta group by asking questions and dissecting any and all examples they posted. The beta group including the Articulate staffers are such amazing people and I learned so much from them.
Besides any initial "getting started!" tutorials, which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up?
I self taught and just ‘jumped in’ to a project and accessed training on the go. I found Lynda.com super helpful, being able to watch the videos related to what I was going at the time. I also looked up e-learning forums for specific questions, which had been asked before so I could access the answers quickly. I also found it helpful to download templates from e-learning heroes that I liked the look of/ wanted the same functionality and would pull them a part to see how they had been built.
What were some of your initial pain points? and/or what did you want to be able to do quickly and didn't know how to?
Slide layers and triggers were initially a foreign but easy once you understand the concept and see a few examples of them in action.
What were some of your aha! moments? (For example, one of mine was button set weirdly)
Creating a transparent player and removing the default previous and next buttons from story view.
What did your first project look like?
To me, it was a huge improvement look and feel wise than what I was able to produce with Captivate. The player was a lot sleeker, I had incorporated layers appearing with narration so it had a bit of a ‘video’ feel.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence?
One project and I confident with it, but I did have prior e-learning experience, which was a big factor.
Hope that helps!
This is my second year authoring in Storyline. I have used Articulate Quizmaker, Presenter, and Engage in past. Since experiences may vary depending on one's background, let me first preface by mentioning that I am an instructional designer and educator by trade. I don't have a computer science background but have always enjoyed using technology and am comfortable with trying to play around with technology to figure things out when I bump into a troubleshooting problem. I hope my answers could help future users.
How did you learn Storyline? (I know a lot of our answers will be "I just started working in it!" but did you have a specific project you needed to build and/or were there people around you who could help?)
At my graduate school internship, I used Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker so I was already familiar with the interface. I learned about storyline when I volunteered a year ago for a non-profit elearnng project. It was a lot of learn as you go, but to be honest because Storyline editing tab is so similar to PowerPoint , I didn't really have to learn much. I could just point and click and start typing content. The only new part I had to get used to was the timeline at bottom and the Trigger panel on right. It also helps that this site has an amazing user forum that's active and very responsive no mater what your level is (beginner, intermediate, advanced etc). I also watched many YouTube videos put out by Articulate storyline and other frequent users.
I tell people who are curious about Storyline, that it's really PowerPoint with advanced interactive features. This knowledge that they don't have to learn a "whole another tool" is really a strong part about Storyline's design. So I'm so happy with the Articulate planning team.
Besides any initial "getting started!" tutorials, which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up?
Great question! The first thing I wanted to know, is what can Storyline do for me? I would suggest showing possibilities first by sending new comers to the Storyline showcase examples page. For videos on YouTube, I hope these users don't mind I'm sharing their great videos ( let me give credit by at least listing the user that posted the videos), but these are the ones I've saved to my bookmarks toolbar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QrZIf3Zc By Academy Class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6691zT-QfQ By Allan Carrington
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSHHgbzIJ1w By endersdesign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1qptHuxNmk By endersdesign
One of my favorite presentations I saw in the showcase is the Milgram one here http://demos.articulate.com/elearning/PsychedIn10/player.html
I show this one to new comers often because it shows how Articulate product (I think this one actually uses Articulate Engage instead of Storyline, but I'm not sure how it was created, regardless of which software, the presentation grabbed my attention throughout) can be used more than just a bullet PowerPoint but also a interactive video - it has video, poll question, etc, and that the poll question isn't a standard interface but you are free to customize how the slide looks and the buttons. Wonderful, truly wonderful feature to open up possibilities.
What were some of your initial pain points? and/or what did you want to be able to do quickly and didn't know how to?
Entering text and images was fine and no problem with just point and click and typing in the content. The tricky part was seeing how much I could customize the interactions. Since I had previously used Articulate Engage and Quizmaker, which gives you form templates to fill in your answer choices but I wanted to do freeform, I had the mindset that it would take lots of time to customize the slide. However, once again after I took to videos on youtube, it was easily apparent that it is much easier in Storyline to customize the answer choices (there is option to move answer choices to any part on slide - allowing you to author freeform). This opens up the possibilities for the drag and drop and multiple choice interactions.
Now that you mention it, I am also still trying to figure out how to make a progress meter in Storyline. I see in the user forums here that many users create their own but it is from scratch and it would be great if there was a premade object or template in the library that I could just insert in the slide. Also, trying to figure out an easier way to edit audio narrations after they are recorded on slides.
What were some of your aha! moments? (For example, one of mine was button sets weirdly) What did your first project look like?
Oooh, you've just reminded me of two other great tutorials that helped me in my first "project" (not really a project per se as it wasn't published for a client, as my first time I opened Storyline and wanted to see how far I could push Storyline's limit) I ended up making a FAQ self paced resource that when the user clicked on a question in the list it would take you to another slide with the answer. Then upon returning to main page with the FAQ questions, the question visited would be checked off. After all qustions are done, the character on the slide would change to happy expression instead of confused starting state and only after all questions are visited is the user prompted to go to next slide.
The two tutorials that inspired me to explore this option are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1QrZIf3Zc By Academy Class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ih1AnnGswc By cbtcafe
I've never known about variables and am still learning about variables. Through this first experience though, I did trial and error and feel I got some training wheels to experiment with variables and to see the possibilities they could offer to help me control the interactions I create.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence?
I'm not sure about putting it on my resume, but I would describe my confidence milestones like this:
After 8 hours - I could enter text, images, change fonts, insert buttons and shapes, and animate and publish and preview the content. Record audio narration is easy and definitely learning the time saving trick of adding "cue points" to timeline to simplify the syncing narration process with bullet point annimations is helpful. I also "got my feet wet" with the timeline at bottom of screen in terms of getting used to dragging the start and end points. Can't go without mentioning the Import From Powerpoint option, which allows you to import existing PowerPoint file and have the font and animations and slide masters carried over too! Amazing! Once copied over, the text is fully editable - AWESOME!
After 2 weeks- able to insert quiz question, add button and a trigger, customized button states. Also record screen capture and add editing the screen capture into a practice mode or just video by default. Also, create results slide , thank you slide etc and being able to customize the results and thank you slide by adding characters, logo, etc.
Some time after 1 month - motion paths, slider (starting in Storyline 2), other quiz questions, and still playing with variables. Customize correct and incorrect feedback text and playing around with triggers beyond jump to next or previous slide.
Thank you all again for this wonderful information!! I can relate to a lot of it :)
Followup questions (that many of you have answered in a sense, but just something else to get more thoughts rolling):
What do you wish you knew sooner? This doesn't necessarily need to be a "pain point" - just something where you were like, "oh! I can do that in Storyline?" or similar. For example, mine was probably cue points :)
What resources have you used to become "advanced" in Storyline? Or perhaps, how advanced are you trying to go?
What came first: Instructional Design or Development? Were you an instructional designer that wanted to start developing, or were you a developer first? I started with Storyline myself, and learned instructional design along the way.
I'm enjoying this thread, here's what I have to say...
How did you learn Storyline? We were asked to do a job in Storyline so we had to pick it up and learn on the fly. Whenever there was a sticking point we'd lean on this forum and most of the time we'd get through!
Besides any initial "getting started!" tutorials, which tutorials were the first ones that you specifically looked up? The first tutorial I had to watch was a Screenr where Jeanette Brooks talked through the process of using a Pick One interaction to turn almost anything in to a graded quiz type. This has been extremely useful so far.
What were some of your initial pain points? and/or what did you want to be able to do quickly and didn't know how to? Pain points for me have always been around the UI, I was used to Adobe products and always found their UI to be more intuitive.When SL2 introduced a dockable timeline I was a lot happier but I'd still feel more at home with Adobe-style panels.
I'd also love it if SL used symbols like Flash does. It would be a real time-saver if I had used a graphic throughout a course and was able to edit a single instance of it to update across the board.
What were some of your aha! moments? As mentioned above I'd have to say Jeanette's Screenr has opened up a lot of options for creating custom interactions.
I also love how the format painter can copy button states.
What did your first project look like? First project looked good. We dropped all of the player chrome and used custom navigation to give a bespoke feel.
How much did you use Storyline until you felt comfortable enough with it to put it down on your resume with confidence? Once I'd survived a set of demanding deadlines and still managed to produce a high-quality end product, pretty much a week after picking it up!
What do you wish you knew sooner? That Storyline was a far better option than Adobe Captivate for the vast majority of what clients ask for.
What resources have you used to become "advanced" in Storyline? This forum. Even if there isn't a thread you feel as though you can contribute to it's good to lurk. There are some great pieces of advice floating around if you follow the current discussions.
What came first: Instructional Design or Development? Neither, I came from a graphic/infographic design background.
I am an entrepreneur, starting an online learning course. I had to teach myself Storyline before I could afford to purchase the software. I learned what I could by watching numerous YouTube videos. I wish I remembered which videos, but I don't, and I didn't have the foresight to bookmark the websites. Once I purchased Storyline, this Articulate community and the resources offered became invaluable. I watched every tutorial (or at least I thought it was every tutorial).
My "ah-ha" moment was when I realized you could do zoom regions. I must have missed that tutorial during my crash course training.
I still have a difficult time understanding states and have realized that I don't use them to their potential.
Anytime I have a question, or don't understand how something works, I am back to the Articulate community website looking up the tutorials.
My first project is very basic. I wish I had the time (and energy) to re-do those earlier courses! I have learned a lot since then, and it shows in the courses. I just hope our learners don't notice.
What an excellent discussion! I'll chime in with my experience using the program so far...
How did you learn Storyline? I was mentored by a fellow colleague very briefly, who gave me a very quick tutorial on how to incorporate variables for the purpose of preventing a user from moving forward in a course. And that was it! That was all the training on the program I was ever given. I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing (I am still learning!), but with the help of this wonderful community (THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!), I was able to teach myself how to navigate through the program and have started developing interactive courses.
What were some of your initial pain points? States! Slides and layers! I understand how they function now, but I tried to make a course using one slide and like 50 layers. I've learned that it's okay to use more than one slide. :)
What were some of your aha! moments? I like to design my own custom buttons for courses and it was taking me a while to copy and paste the colors, font style and size, and other design elements when I stumbled across a lifesaver: Format Painter. Done. Like that. It copied the format (style) of the object that I wanted and it allowed me to duplicate its format across the course.
What did your first project look like? A fully interactive compliance course, complete with audio and graphics! I incorporated some simple animations and transitions that made training presentation much more enjoyable. It's my baby, my first course ever, and I am so happy with the results. I can't wait to build more!
What came first: Instructional Design or Development? I recently transitioned to the field of instructional design from education. I taught students with special needs for more than six years, but I feel that this experience has helped me understand how others learn. I've always enjoyed the technological aspect of education and I love that I am able to combine both now.
:)
Hi, Rachel:
A few thoughts:
1. I learned a ton from going through Tom's Storyline tutorials on the Articulate site. Even if I knew what he was covering, he always gives you a nugget you weren't expecting. I'd also recommend his Studio tutorials.
2. Aha moments: Your Storyline wizardry pales in the light of solid instructional design. Most projects are pretty straightforward. Resist the tendency many elearning developers have to overdesign.
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