Forum Discussion
Back button returns me to the last visited slide and not to the previous direct slide
When I use the previous slide button, it directs me to the slide I visited previously and not the one before where I am located. This happens with the default action that Storyline gives me.
I need it to just go back to the slide before where I am located.
The default trigger for the PREV button is to jump to the "previous" slide. As you've figured out, "previous" is defined as whatever slide the user just came from (similar to how the back button of a browser works).
If you want the PREV button to always follow the linear path of the slides, you have to hard-code the trigger on each slide. That means changing "previous slide" to a specific slide, as shown here:
Warning: If you add, delete, or re-arrange slides, you'll have to adjust the hard-coding.
It's a problem! This is not agile
Hi, Alejandro.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on how you'd prefer the jump to previous trigger/button to behave.
We have a feature request logged to allow users to set the logic for the Previous slide trigger.
I'm adding this discussion to the report, and I will update you if I have any news to share or if this request makes it to our feature roadmap.
From purely a programming perspective: considering that one can create adaptive paths and triggers from any slide, it makes sense that previous means going back to the previously viewed slide. It doesn't make sense that previous is a slide from which the user has not visited.
For example, if you are on Slide 10 and click something that goes to slide 20 and then click previous, the expected user behavior is to go back to the previous location slide 10 and not slide 19.
If you want the previous slide to mean the slide in sequential order, then it's probably best to create a linear series of slides and not allow the user to jump out of order thus previous would always represent the previous slide in order.
Is this how everyone is thinking over at Articulate, explaining why the feature hasn't even been added to the roadmap yet? From purely a programming perspective, you introduced the sidebar menu, which allows the author to efficiently enable learners to track their progress and return to a previous viewed slide. Including this as a "toggle on feature" for the author and then forcing them to manually link every previous slide makes the sidebar menu NOT a "toggle on feature."
From purely a learner perspective: "Hmm, where was that thing I just read?" [Learner clicks on slide 1.6 in the sidebar menu.] "Nope... Maybe it was the slide just before this one?" [Learner clicks back button because they intuitively understand that the next button moved them forward one slide and so the back button should move them backward in the sequence one slide as it has up until this point]. "Wait, where am I? Why am I back in Chapter 3? Bleh, I hate eLearning. It's so broken."
No learner ever clicked on a button to view an appendix slide, returned to the main content slide, and then clicked the previous button on the main content slide and thought, "Oh thank god, I'm back on the appendix slide like I wanted to be."
Back to our programming perspective, Articulate is obviously already considering sequence in how they load NEXT slides into the DOM. Just add an option for the author to toggle their preference and then load previous sequence slides into memory instead of storing the previously viewed slide in memory.
You'll also note that in Rise, from purely a programming perspective, when the learner scrolls to the top of the lesson and clicks the PREVIOUS button, they return to the lesson previously in SEQUENCE, not to whatever lesson they were previously on despite that "one can create adaptive paths and triggers from any slide."
Hi,
Did anything come of this request?
From a programming perspective. Having used other development tools, I know it would much be much more efficient if the user could set the logic for the Previous slide trigger.
Having to hard code 100+ slides this way is so painful and allows a bigger margin for error.
This also prevents the user being able to use the Slide Master for the next and previous buttons.
Hi Aaron!
Thank you for reaching out! I completely understand and appreciate your feedback. I've shared this with our team directly to see what modifying this would look like. I'll keep you posted!
Hi. I'm very new to the community so I apologize if this isn't the right place for this question. I came across this discussion (and several like it) because I discovered this "Previous" button behavior and, like it appears many others, would like to be able to change the overall programming to go to the previous slide in the sequence. To show support for this functionality, is there an existing feature request that I can upvote or add on to, or would I submit a new, individual feature request?
Hi Jeremy!
Glad to see Judy has been helping you!
Thanks for the feedback on the type of functionality you'd like to see in Storyline! I've shared your comments with our product team and will update this discussion as soon as we have news to share.
If you'd like to stay up to date, please bookmark our Feature Roadmap.
You can submit a feature request here: https://access.articulate.com/support/contact/feature-request
- Submitting a request doesn't guarantee that a feature will be implemented. But how many people request a feature could have some impact on the decision-making process.
