I am making a massive course (about 60 slides, which will take about 30 minutes to complete). It's a software tutorial, so first-timers really need to go in order.
However, a coworker and I were discussing how it would be nice for people to be able to repeat the course and use a menu to skip to only the parts they want to repeat. Is it at all possible to have the menu (either the side menu in Articulate, or a custom slide made to function like a menu) that only appears when learners repeat the course?
Hi Laurel, you could easily build this in doing the following -
determine what constitutes "done" in the course (i.e., viewed the last slide, or completed the last interaction)
Then, on that slide/interaction, add a trigger to adjust a true/false variable (like "CourseComplete") to be True.
Then, edit the Master slide:
Add new layer
Create the menu on this new layer
On the base for the master slide, add a trigger to "show layer when timeline starts", on condition that "variable CourseComplete == True
However, this would only show the menu if the user continued from where they left off - so, you might consider forcing a continue when they access the course again, instead of giving them a choice. (Go to "Player" >> Click "Other" >> in the "On restart" dropdown, select "Never resume")
Hope this makes sense. Let me know if this needs further clarification and I'd be happy to help out.
Can I ask why you're grouping it all into a 60-slide presentation? I only ask because I create software training and simulations for my company, and I'm moving us away from the "massive lesson approach" - the science is there to show that learners do better when we break it up into smaller chunks (I'm personally shooting for 3-5 minutes max per feature, to be taken in a specific order).
Thank you for the response! I think I will use the "Never resume" method you described.
I like your idea of breaking the content up into 3-5 minute chunks, and I certainly have enough "chunks" to do so. That would eliminate the need for a menu, as users could repeat whichever chunk(s) they need. I'll pitch the idea to my supervisor and see what she thinks.
Still forces them to go through it in order, then they can skip around what they've already seen. It may be a good option to have so that if they miss something in the previous video, they can go back.
That said - I second Michael - that's very long for technical training! Depending on how intuitive the software already is, it may be better to make guidance documentation then have them use the tutorials as needed. If it isn't that intuitive, then scrap that idea :).
You might also find something like www.walkme.com useful.
3 Replies
Hi Laurel, you could easily build this in doing the following -
Then, edit the Master slide:
However, this would only show the menu if the user continued from where they left off - so, you might consider forcing a continue when they access the course again, instead of giving them a choice. (Go to "Player" >> Click "Other" >> in the "On restart" dropdown, select "Never resume")
Hope this makes sense. Let me know if this needs further clarification and I'd be happy to help out.
Can I ask why you're grouping it all into a 60-slide presentation? I only ask because I create software training and simulations for my company, and I'm moving us away from the "massive lesson approach" - the science is there to show that learners do better when we break it up into smaller chunks (I'm personally shooting for 3-5 minutes max per feature, to be taken in a specific order).
Michael,
Thank you for the response! I think I will use the "Never resume" method you described.
I like your idea of breaking the content up into 3-5 minute chunks, and I certainly have enough "chunks" to do so. That would eliminate the need for a menu, as users could repeat whichever chunk(s) they need. I'll pitch the idea to my supervisor and see what she thinks.
Hey Laurel, you can make the menu "restricted" - they can't move anymore forward in the course, but once they pass a slide, they can go back to it.
http://www.articulate.com/support/storyline/how-to-restrict-navigation-throughout-a-storyline-course
Still forces them to go through it in order, then they can skip around what they've already seen. It may be a good option to have so that if they miss something in the previous video, they can go back.
That said - I second Michael - that's very long for technical training! Depending on how intuitive the software already is, it may be better to make guidance documentation then have them use the tutorials as needed. If it isn't that intuitive, then scrap that idea :).
You might also find something like www.walkme.com useful.
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