Selling the value of Rise & a quick poll

Most of the courses I develop are in Storyline, because they require more programming control than Rise offers. But for simple courses that require fast turnaround, Rise is a great choice. 

FYI: The vast majority of the courses I develop for my clients do not use audio narration. Why?

• Narration extends the development timeline, because the audio script has to be completely approved before the recording session, which has to be done before the audio files can be added to the course, which has to be done before any animations can be synced to the audio... 
• Narration is more expensive. In addition to the cost of the extra development time, there's the cost of a professional narrator. Plus the cost of the extra time each employee needs to complete the course by listening to the content vs. reading the content.
  • Suppose the 4000 employees in your company are required to take a given course. And suppose that, with narration, it takes just an extra 5 minutes to complete vs the course without narration. 5 min x 4000 employees = 20,000 min = 333 person hours.  
• Narration makes it more complicated to update the course later. Can you get the same narrator? Will the new audio clips sound different somehow, potentially distracting the learner? 
• Yes, using text-to-speech can alleviate some of the above  issues. But does anyone like listening to those automated voices? 
• Most importantly: Do the learners really want to listen to a narrator when they could read the content much quicker? Is the audio actually helping them learn?
  • If the narrator is reading the same or similar text to what's on the slide, narration actually increases cognitive load, which decreases learning. (Well, except in a few cases, such a someone taking a course that's not in their native language.)
  • Narration is helpful for situations in which the narrator is describing actions that are happening on the screen. For example, if the slide is showing machine parts moving or software being used, it decreases cognitive load when the learner can watch that happen while listening to the description (instead of trying to read text on the side while watching the action). 

Bottom line:  Some ILTs are wonderfully effective. But ILT in which the instructor basically reads the text that's on each slide isn't a "gold standard." The success of training (instructor-led or online) depends on the instructional design. That design should meet the needs of the learners using the capabilities of the delivery platform.