Shapes next to the slide

Judy is right about their use. Part of why they might be used is if you want a state change that you don’t want to be visible on the stage. Although, if you have an object on the stage you can use the Selected or Visited state. If you make it a copy of the Normal state, the change isn’t seen.  Another use of it is for creating a quiz format that isn’t exactly within the capabilities of one of the built-in quizzes, but with results that need to be reported. You can use a Pick One quiz, and put a couple of items off the stage with selected states. Then your triggers can determine if the quiz is answered appropriately and set the corresponding object to Selected state. Set those two objects as the Correct and Incorrect answers.

It is extra unnecessary work to use them to change the NEXT button. If all the actions necessary to change NEXT take place on the same slide, you can use the learners actions. Clicking an object will change it to Visited without triggers, and is reliable if you stay on the same slide. Again, if the Visited state is a duplicate of the Normal state, the learner won’t see the difference, but SL will track it. 

If part of the actions necessary to change NEXT involve going to a different slide, Visited states aren’t reliable. Use variables, instead.

For anybody that is reading this that would rather use objects because they don’t want to use variables, there is an explanation that might help at this discussion: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/building-better-courses/what-are-variables-and-how-and-why-should-i-use-them