my storyline programs are looking very power-"pointish" :(

Hey Christina!

Thanks for posting! Great topic, can't wait to see what others in the community have to say about this. A few tips from me...

• Use fade in and fade out animations to have things appear more smoothly and less choppy


• Use the appropriate speed for animations, medium-slow might be better. The fast animations can sometimes give visual whiplash I've found hehe


• Space things out appropriately in the timeline. If one character fades out, wait a few seconds before something else appears on screen. This gives the learner time to follow what's happening, and digest what is happening on screen.

Just a few tips to begin with... if you can, consider posting your file here in the forum for others to look at. That helps us to give really specific advice for your project Hope this helps, Christina! Good luck!

Hi Christina,

As above - can you post and example .story so that we help you out here?

Bruce

Sure I can post the program - its not complete (or polished).  Is there something specific i need to do to post it (ok so I'm really green here )

Hi again...

Just use the "paper-clip" icon on a post to attach the .story file, and then we can have a look and a "tinker" 

Bruce

Thanks very much Bruce! I appreciate everyone's patience

Thanks Nicole for the tips!

Hey Christina, 

Nice work! Overall, this looks good! like the use of character and using the caption boxes for the speech gives it a more personal feel. I like the light shade of blue you're using, easy on the eyes. I also really like the title slide design, very sleek and modern looking.

A few tips to consider/ponder over..

• Maybe give the character a name and when you say "Hello" or "welcome" she can introduce herself. Instead of having this nameless character, might help give it even more of a personal feel. 
• Instead of having her stand in the middle of a blank blue slide, perhaps adding a rectangle shape for the floor (with the "wooden" fill) and a rectangle for a baseboard could make it look like she's actually standing in a room, instead of in the middle of nothing  
• Instead of hiding objects you dont want on the slide, I recommend deleting them. Good best practice to remove any objects you dont need, gets rid of clutter in your timeline and makes it a lot easier to work with your timeline.
• I don't like to have text appear for a few seconds, and then disappear., mostly just in case someone doesnt have time to read something. Some people are very slow readers... Instead of having three sentences appear individually in their own Caption box, why not combine the first three into one box? Makes it easier for the user. that way you dont have to guess how long you should leave the text visible or how long it might take for people to read it.  

Just a few ideas!! Thanks for sharing your file, and I really like what you've got so far. 

Hi, Christina:

Thanks for the post. A few suggestions:

• Put seekbars on the slides so learners know about how long it is, and can scroll back or through if they need to
• Have the typewriter type come in faster--or even better, all at once
• Might you insert a screen recording of you doing some common task? This software training lends itself to screen recordings.
• You might consider putting together a template of four or so "slide looks" so the learner gets the vibe that there's a pattern to how things are appearing on-screen.

If you're interested here's a Studio 09 presentation I put together on a similiar topic (see Sample Demo 2 in portfolio). Checkout Sample Demo 2. Might give you a few ideas for the next project.

Thanks again for posting. --Daniel

Hi Christina, you've gotten quite a few good tips here. The one thing that is missing for me is a setting for your character. You can download some great backgrounds from the downloads section. A good one is the Simple Backgrounds: http://community.articulate.com/downloads/p/58926.aspx. It really works well with the animated characters.

Check out how it cleans up your course.

This has nothing to do with the actual Storyline, but it is a suggestion for streamling the text you have in the speech bubbles in the "Did You Know" section.

Keep the title Did you know....: and then instead of starting every question with "Did you know" you can just start in on the text since you've already asked "Did you know" in the title.  

As I am just embarking on my first Storyline project, I appreciate that you have included your example here as I was able to look at the "finished" product and then look behind the curtain to see how you have programmed it.  

Jeff Did you add another header to your sample?  I really like how your slide works I was just curious how you did that?

Thanks again!!

Christina