Forum Discussion
Plans for Non-AI Storyline360 Updates?
I'd like this post twice if I could. The rather egregious generative AI spam and capitulation from an industry-leading authoring tool I otherwise enjoy dearly is disappointing. I would really appreciate a renewed focus on improving the core experience, quality of life, stability, efficiency, performance, player functionality, interactivity, and more. There have been some good updates to this end in the past year, but we still don't have a native Mac version after over a *decade* of requests. We still don't have dark mode after over a *decade* of requests. The SL quiz engine and its associated features often feel archaic and buggy. Please innovate and iterate on your core features.
Hey JosephFerraroKW,
I completely understand the frustration.
I can confirm that feedback like what you’ve shared here isn’t going unnoticed. Even when a long-standing request hasn’t led to a feature being built, the feedback and context customers provide help us understand where the friction lies and what users need most from our products.
You raised a broader point about wanting to see continued investment in Storyline’s core authoring experience, alongside newer capabilities like AI. Of the core improvements you mentioned, which one is creating the biggest obstacle in your work today?
Hi StevenBenassi,
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I'd say the biggest obstacles are:
1) Sluggish application performance related to needing to run SL360 in a VM because Articulate doesn't develop for Mac natively. I've dealt with this since Storyline 2 across multiple companies, computers, and virtualization methods. Articulate is a multibillion dollar company. It should have a Mac version. It should have dark mode.2) Ancient default quiz engine interaction elements, with a lot of rather inflexible characteristics that make them harder to use than they need to be. Why for instance is the hotspot interaction selection icon this weird tiny green radar thing that's color can't be changed? There are all sorts of quirks from these presets that could use an overhaul. Maybe introduce some gamification tools.
3) The Modern Player's navigation restrictions can't be controlled via variable (e.g., toggle locked slide to unlocked, or completed, etc.). This would be a game changer if you could unlock everything for returning users and custom configurations.
I'm interested in engaging experiences that are authentic, and human-generated. The agentic support for beginners / user accessibility, and things like internal closed captioning support are nice to haves. I have little interest in the majority of the generative AI offerings. It doesn't accelerate things as much as it just makes for more rework and de-sloppification. AI voiceovers are tacky, disingenuous, and disengaging, and really only acceptable for placeholders. YMMV, but that's the feedback.
Overall, I'd just say that after over a decade, I still really enjoy building in Storyline, but I encourage you to explore and refocus on how to support efforts to make even more engaging, authentic, and human-design forward experiences, with more interesting and flexible content formats and user interactions, while also looking towards core support for Mac.