TIP: Quality-assurance (QA) testing is a vital step

Ask yourself: Have you ever had a problem taking an eLearning course? Perhaps you had trouble getting back to certain content. Or you were forced to re-do an interaction you already completed. Or a link didn’t work.

Now ask yourself this: Do you always test for these issues in the courses you develop?

These and other problems could be caught—and corrected—in advance by doing a thorough quality-assurance (QA) check of the entire course before you distribute it.

FYI: With Storyline and Rise, it’s possible to do quite a bit of testing in Preview. However, it’s important to ensure that the entire course will work. The advantage of testing a published version is that you can immediately fix minor issues in the source while keeping the published course open in your browser. Depending on the issue, retesting a fix in Preview might be enough. However, doing another QA check after republishing may also be needed.

 

Below is a general overview of what to include in a QA check.

• A few items are Storyline specific.
• The list doesn’t include items that are typically checked during content reviews, such as looking for spelling and grammatical errors. But, of course, fix those if you spot them!

 

Basic navigation works as intended.

• Can the user go forward and backward through a course?
  • Does the PREV button jump to the “previous slide” (that is, work like a browser’s Back button)? Or, if it was programmed to always go to a designated slide in a linear sequence, does it do that correctly?
  • Does content appear correctly when it is revisited?
• Can the user access the content via a built-in or custom menu (if included)?
  • Does the menu work as intended? (For example, with free or restricted navigation.)
  • Do the titles in the menu match the titles in the content?
  • Do the titles in the menu appear in the correct order?
• Can the user successfully branch to different paths (if included)?
  • Do all potential paths work as intended?
  • Can the user go through more than one path and/or repeat a path (when allowable)?

 

Hyperlinks and attachments work as intended.

• Do hyperlinks open the correct site?
• Can the user access attachments?

 

Interactions work as intended.

• Can the user complete each interaction?
• Does each interaction show the correct content when appropriate?
• Will each interaction display and work correctly if the user revisits it?
• Can the user revisit a slide with an interaction without being required to complete the interaction again?
• Do the variables (if used) change to the appropriate values as expected?
  • Note: A variable’s value persists until a trigger changes it. A common mistake is using the same variable to track different interactions. It might work when previewing an individual slide or scene, but not when going through the entire course.

 

Media (audio and video) work as intended.

• Does the media play when it’s supposed to?
• Do control buttons work as expected?
• Do captions/transcripts display as expected?
• Does the text in captions/transcripts match what’s spoken?

 

Quizzes work as intended.

• Can the user select and edit their response(s) before submitting them?
• Does the proper feedback appear (if included)?
• Does the program properly mark questions as correct/incorrect and provide an accurate score?
• Does the appropriate feedback appear during a quiz Review (if allowed)?
• Can the user retake the quiz (if allowed)?
• Do the intended settings for limiting attempts work for each question and/or the entire quiz?

 

Accessibility features work as intended.

• Is it possible to navigate the course with a keyboard?
• Will a screen reader speak the content in the proper order?
• Note: For more complete information, visit https://community.articulate.com/series/all-about-accessibility

 

Resume and completion functions work as intended in the LMS/LRS.

• Does the course resume at the proper location if the user exits and relaunches it?
• Doe the course register as completed when appropriate?
• Note: Some companies have their own QA checklist. That checklist might assume a course has already passed other aspects of QA testing before it is submitted for testing in the LMS/LRS.

 

What should do if something in your course isn’t working? Try the eightfold path of troubleshooting: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/tip-the-eightfold-path-of-troubleshooting

 

Finally, here are some of Articulate’s helpful resources:

• Top tips for QA: https://community.articulate.com/articles/top-four-tips-for-e-learning-quality-assurance-qa-testing
• QA for localized (translated) courses: https://community.articulate.com/articles/qa-test-your-localized-e-learning-courses-in-4-easy-steps

 

Best wishes for courses that work!