Change appearance of hot spot question selector marker

Aug 28, 2012

Is there a way to change the color or size of the selection marker for hot spot questions in Storyline? I get feedback the marker is small and hard to see. I would like to make it more noticable. 

43 Replies
Andrew Sellon

Tracey--by all means, please do share your workaround!  Like Susan, I have found the "selected" marker difficult to see, and I have had clients understandably refuse to use that question type because of the visibility issue.  I'm also going to file a feature request, to add my name to the list.  I think I did file a request sometime last year, but it bears repeating.

Tracey Henderson

Hi Andrew!

I've attached my example here.  In the original, there is a question that appears over the three answer choices.  I created 3 additional layers, each with a yellow star kinda thing over a choice and the text from the choice in a text box over the star (because otherwise the text is somewhat obscured by the star).  I added three triggers -- one for each layer -- that reveal that layer if that hotspot is selected. 

Does that make any sense?  

Christie Pollick

Hi, Santosh -- Thanks for reaching out, and unfortunately, I do not have any updated information to share at this time. You may want to consider the workaround Tracey shared above, and if you would like to reach our Product Development team and request this functionality as well, here is the form you would need to do so. And maybe others will have some additional workarounds to share, as well! 

Frank  Bialas

You can add me to the list of folks who would like to be able to make the hot spot selector icon editable to make it much more easily seen.  Using Storyline 2, I made a couple of quiz questions with a table of data taking up the full screen.  The learner must find the spot showing the anomaly of concern.  That one 3/4" spot is the correct answer; the whole rest of the screen is the wrong answer.  The wrong answer can be anywhere on the screen that isn't the hotspot. 

In review mode after completing a test of many questions, a wrong answer selection is not obvious in the screen full of data.  So, the user would see they got that question wrong by the big red 'incorrect' banner at the bottom of the screen, but can't easily see what their answer was.  In Review mode of a graded test that the student can take again and again, you don't show the correct answers, of course.  They need to do some work to pass the test, not just guess till they get a question right.  Please let me know when this feature is added.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Frank,

This discussion is a bit older - but it would really help if you could share an idea or example of what you'd like to see? Some screenshots and examples of how it's working now vs. what you'd like to see would be great to share with our team as a Feature requests here. If you’re wondering what happens when you submit a feature request, here’s our process.

Thanks for reaching out and sharing more info! 

Ali Goulet

Hey Frank! It looks like you may have a couple accounts here based on the differences in profile pics between your replies.

Log in here with the email address you replied from in your comment above my last reply, and you should see the option to "Edit" your post like this:

Let me know if you have any trouble with that! 

Lori Haney

The workaround I've been playing with is to use a Pick One or Pick Many interaction.  I cover the entire area with transparent rectangles and then customize the "selected" state of each with the icon I want to show when the learner makes their choice.  Then I make each of the transparent rectangles an answer choice in form view, and indicate which is the correct answer. 

For example, I needed students to find three cats hidden in a picture.  I covered the picture with a grid of 40ish transparent rectangles.  For the selected state of each rectangle I added a cat paw icon.  I changed the size of some rectangles  to fit the cats and other likely options that students might choose and adjusted the placement of the paw on a few as well, but for the most part it was just an exercise in copy and pasting.   The longest part was setting all 40 rectangles as answer choices, but once that was done, I had a pretty effective hot spot alternative.  Students could select any place on the picture and a paw print "stamp" would show.   Once they were satisfied with their choices, they could hit submit to see if they were right.  

It worked well for an interaction where the selection areas were pretty large, but it might be a more challenging strategy if the items you want learners to select are small (so you'd need more rectangles) or if the borders are weird (like a map hotspot).   Hope this helps.  Love to hear other strategies or even ways to make something like this more streamlined.  

Chris B

Adding this to my wish list as well, and just submitted a feature request. Even if we could just have a couple of alternate icons to choose from, maybe one that's a target or a cross hair for example? I've had several people that are confused with the spinning icon and think that the program has crashed, or is "still thinking" and don't realize that they have to click Submit to continue. Thanks, appreciate the support!

J H

OH for the love, have we gotten a show/hide fix to this dang hotspot wheel indicator yet?? It looks just like a "processing" spinner and so confusing many of our users.

They're not clicking "Submit" because they're waiting for the stupid wheel to finish spinning, bc they think it means the system is thinking or hung up, WHICH IS A MORE COMMON AND REASONABLE ASSUMPTION than it meaning "selected."

Can we at least just get a patch with option to turn it on/off?  I have object states that show the selected hotspot. So no need for some clumsy spinner wheel.

Even just that locus echo animation would be fine w/o the wheel, but that spinner, ackk!!! Extraneous, distracting & confusing.