The Top 3 Most Common Storyline Mistakes

As a long-time coder in several languages and applications, I have ascribed to (subscribed to?) How To Write Unmaintainable Code, which has been in circulation in one form or another for well over a quarter-century. This version was reproduced with the original author's permission.

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon

When I open a junior developer's Storyline file and see a cavalcade of objects titled Rectangle, I know I've found a kindred spirt. Bonus points if they're grouped together and the Group Title is also Rectangle.

Or a simple shape like the afore-mentioned rectangle with a text box on top of it, which is perfectly centered and has the same timing as the object beneath it. Now have about 14 of those sets on the slide. Bonus points if you break a paragraph up into individual text objects and align them on the rectangle.

Or a trigger which is listening to a counter incrementing a variable. When the var is exactly equal to a specific number, then the NEXT button can be clicked. Oops, the learner clicked one of the tabs on the slide twice and now that variable is greater than the required number? So much for the NEXT button. Time to restart the course from the beginning.

Or multiple triggers which do the same thing, but because of the execution order, several will never fire.