I am a new Storyline user and I must admit so far I'm loving it. I have already built a course, with question in between sections. For one particular question (matching drop down), I was trying to have six statements in the left hand column and they would correspond to the drop down menu items which would have 3 choices. Is this even possible? I don't see this is available when I try to insert a quiz question. All I can see that it must be matching pairs, which means there should be 6 items in the drop down menu as well. Is there a way to get around this?
Correct, the Matching drop-down quiz requires matching responses. So, if you were to provide 6 topics, or questions, there would need to be 6 matches provided for the responses.
You could always create a custom drop-down menu quiz, however, with a freeform quiz. It may take a bit of work (as you'll soon see), but in the end it may pay off.
I put together an example for you, if you'd like to take a look:
I used a freeform Pick Many quiz and built the menus using shapes, states and layers. I'm also attaching the example file to this thread, just in case you want to take a closer look at how I set this up.
If something like this isn't what you'd like to do, maybe considering another type of interaction would work best for you.
I must admit, I had a lot of fun building that. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask
Good luck with the project!
Christine
Christine,
Thanks so much for your example. I'm working on creating a quiz screen with multiple dropdown boxes, each having its own choices (so a multiple dropdown matching doesn't work), and the user must select the right choice on each dropdown in order to get the question right.
Your example pretty much hits this spot on, but I don't fully understand how it works, and I think it might have an issue to work out. I see that your correct answers appear to be using the "Selected" state on each, but how are you specifying in the "Edit Pick Many" configuration what the correct state is? Is it considered correct when all of the necessary selected states for the chosen shapes are active?
As for the issue, it seems that when you click on the base layer dropdowns, each is automatically set to its selected state (because it was clicked and selected) and therefore gives away the correct answer. Is there a workaround for this while still keeping the Pick Many?
Ok, I took Christine's example and ran with it and figured out how to make something that fit my needs. I'll post my example here and try my best to explain how it works...
I used some off-stage objects to keep track of each dropdown's correct answer choice. I then added those off-stage items to the "Pick Many" list instead of the actual drop-downs themselves. These items start out in their Normal state and are switched to either an Incorrect state or the Correct (Selected) state as the drop-down choices are made.
This overcomes the issue I had with Christine's file where the correct answer of each drop-down (its Selected state) was toggled and revealed to the user when the drop-down was clicked on. In my project, I only change the off-stage object's state to "Selected" when the correct choice/state of the drop-down is also selected.
I also included an additional off-stage object to track the status of whether all of the drop-downs have a selection made to them. This object is also included in the "Pick Many" list of correct answers. This object is configured to only become "Selected" when all of the drop-downs have a selection (correct or incorrect -- doesn't matter) made on them. It is needed to prevent a case where the user would select a choice in some (but not all) of the drop-downs and still be able to submit their answers. In this case, they would get the answer incorrect, when in fact they should get an error message telling them to make a selection in all of the drop-down boxes.
Storyline is programmed to display an Invalid Answers error on its own, but only when none of the "Pick Many" items have been selected at all. Once one is selected, it will no longer display the Invalid Answer popup, which is fine if you're selecting images or something, but not so much with these drop-downs. So my solution was to make a custom "Invalid Answer" popup and display it whenever the user clicks Submit without having made a selection in all of the drop-downs. I also prevent the Submit interaction from going through until all drop-downs have a selection made on them.
Anyway, none of this will probably make sense until you look at the project file and play around with it. With that said, I'll be happy to answer questions you may have on it!
Thanks Chad for the explanation and the example! I often feel that things like this are best understood when there is a file to play with and see the actual triggers, variables, etc.
Thanks for posting these. I think it would be a great addition to Storyline to have this type of quiz slide already set up. Are there plans to add this? I think this is a common type of question.
Great explanation. I made one of my own to share. The only difference is that I used a pick one question type and my submit button doesn't show until the learner has made all of their choices.
Charles, that's a very clean interaction and configuration! I especially like your use of hotspots to handle the mouseover "exit" events. I will also say I wasn't expecting the dropdowns to expand on mouseover, but it feels pretty natural once you try it out! I'm not sure how well it'd work for mobile, though. Does the mouseover event triggered when it's tapped on mobile?
Also, your use of variables makes it all MUCH cleaner by not having to deal with several states for each item like I did. I considered using variables, but I was trying to make my slides as reusable as possible, so I opted for the states. It wouldn't be hard to just make more variables, though.
When I made my example in SL1, I was using the built-in player buttons, so I couldn't disable/enable the Submit button on the fly. The features in SL2 will make this a lot easier in that I can keep the Submit button disabled until all selections have been made (similar to your use of a custom submit button).
Also, after posting my example, I made additional changes by adding items to the review layer to show all of the correct answers and show a green check mark next to any correctly chosen answers. This added more development time, but it made the feedback a lot more helpful as it doesn't leave the learner wondering which selections were correct.
Charles, I went ahead and tried your example on the mobile player using an android tablet, and it works really well except for when you tap into a dropdown and then try to tap away from it without making a new selection. The "tap-away" (or tap outside of the dropdown) only hides the dropdown layer if the selection is within the hotspot surrounding that particular dropdown. It seems like an easy fix would be to just make the hotspots the size of the slide, or add a click outside trigger or something.
Thanks everyone for the great ideas. They help me get to where I needed to get to.
I used the pick many (multiple response) approach using the check boxes off page but struggled to get the correct feedback if the learner got all questions wrong. I got the 'your answer isn't valid' response feedback as it was expecting at least one selection to mark. I got around this problem by including an extra check box off page with its state set to selected to make it think there'd been at least one selection in the question. Not 100% perfect but a good work around for me.
Thanks for that update Andrew and glad you were able to figure out a set up that worked for you! If you still want folks to take a look feel free to post your .story file here so that we can take a look!
I also wanted to let you know that responding via email includes your signature here. You are welcome to edit the post to remove that if you'd like so that it is no longer public. Also if you meant to attach something as a part of this reply, attachments won't be posted when shared via the forums, so you'll need to visit this page to use the "add attachments" button.
I love this example you shared but have the same question that others did. How did you specify the correct answers? I'm hoping this thread is still active! Thanks!
Hello Tom - This thread is a bit dated and Christine does not make it back to the forums often. Take a look at Chad's sample/explanation here and hopefully that will assist you.
OK, some impressive stuff here, but what if i wanted to do a response question which required one option selected from a dropdown? So no multple questions, just one from a dropdown?
Hi Alastair! There is some great stuff here. If you just need one question, you should still be able to follow the set-up that Christine shared above - maybe a pick one question type would work better, but set the slide up the same.
Otherwise, I'll leave it open to the community if they have any ways to create your custom design.
33 Replies
Welcome to the community, Ivana!
Correct, the Matching drop-down quiz requires matching responses. So, if you were to provide 6 topics, or questions, there would need to be 6 matches provided for the responses.
You could always create a custom drop-down menu quiz, however, with a freeform quiz. It may take a bit of work (as you'll soon see), but in the end it may pay off.
I put together an example for you, if you'd like to take a look:
Custom Drop Down Example for Ivana
I used a freeform Pick Many quiz and built the menus using shapes, states and layers. I'm also attaching the example file to this thread, just in case you want to take a closer look at how I set this up.
If something like this isn't what you'd like to do, maybe considering another type of interaction would work best for you.
Good luck with the project and welcome again! :)
Christine
Thank you so much Christine. That will do the trick!
You're very welcome, Ivana!
I must admit, I had a lot of fun building that. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask :)
Good luck with the project!
Christine
I just have the exact same issue as Ivana. Thank you Christine for building and sharing that custom drop down example.
Hi Dan and welcome to Heroes!
I'm glad Christine's example worked for you and if there is anything else we can assist you with please let us know!
Christine,
Thanks so much for your example. I'm working on creating a quiz screen with multiple dropdown boxes, each having its own choices (so a multiple dropdown matching doesn't work), and the user must select the right choice on each dropdown in order to get the question right.
Your example pretty much hits this spot on, but I don't fully understand how it works, and I think it might have an issue to work out. I see that your correct answers appear to be using the "Selected" state on each, but how are you specifying in the "Edit Pick Many" configuration what the correct state is? Is it considered correct when all of the necessary selected states for the chosen shapes are active?
As for the issue, it seems that when you click on the base layer dropdowns, each is automatically set to its selected state (because it was clicked and selected) and therefore gives away the correct answer. Is there a workaround for this while still keeping the Pick Many?
Ok, I took Christine's example and ran with it and figured out how to make something that fit my needs. I'll post my example here and try my best to explain how it works...
I used some off-stage objects to keep track of each dropdown's correct answer choice. I then added those off-stage items to the "Pick Many" list instead of the actual drop-downs themselves. These items start out in their Normal state and are switched to either an Incorrect state or the Correct (Selected) state as the drop-down choices are made.
This overcomes the issue I had with Christine's file where the correct answer of each drop-down (its Selected state) was toggled and revealed to the user when the drop-down was clicked on. In my project, I only change the off-stage object's state to "Selected" when the correct choice/state of the drop-down is also selected.
I also included an additional off-stage object to track the status of whether all of the drop-downs have a selection made to them. This object is also included in the "Pick Many" list of correct answers. This object is configured to only become "Selected" when all of the drop-downs have a selection (correct or incorrect -- doesn't matter) made on them. It is needed to prevent a case where the user would select a choice in some (but not all) of the drop-downs and still be able to submit their answers. In this case, they would get the answer incorrect, when in fact they should get an error message telling them to make a selection in all of the drop-down boxes.
Storyline is programmed to display an Invalid Answers error on its own, but only when none of the "Pick Many" items have been selected at all. Once one is selected, it will no longer display the Invalid Answer popup, which is fine if you're selecting images or something, but not so much with these drop-downs. So my solution was to make a custom "Invalid Answer" popup and display it whenever the user clicks Submit without having made a selection in all of the drop-downs. I also prevent the Submit interaction from going through until all drop-downs have a selection made on them.
Anyway, none of this will probably make sense until you look at the project file and play around with it. With that said, I'll be happy to answer questions you may have on it!
Thanks Chad for the explanation and the example! I often feel that things like this are best understood when there is a file to play with and see the actual triggers, variables, etc.
Chad/Christine,
Thank you for sharing, these examples will be great for a project I'm working on.
Thanks for posting these. I think it would be a great addition to Storyline to have this type of quiz slide already set up. Are there plans to add this? I think this is a common type of question.
Hi Tracy,
You're always welcome and encouraged to share your thoughts on features you'd like to see here with our product development team.
Chad,
Great explanation. I made one of my own to share. The only difference is that I used a pick one question type and my submit button doesn't show until the learner has made all of their choices.
Example
http://zoffuto94.s3.amazonaws.com/Labled%20Graphic%20Drop-Down%20Menu%20Quiz%20-%20Storyline%20output/story.html
Download
(see attached)
Thanks Charles for popping in here to share !
Thanks for sharing as well Charles :)
Charles, that's a very clean interaction and configuration! I especially like your use of hotspots to handle the mouseover "exit" events. I will also say I wasn't expecting the dropdowns to expand on mouseover, but it feels pretty natural once you try it out! I'm not sure how well it'd work for mobile, though. Does the mouseover event triggered when it's tapped on mobile?
Also, your use of variables makes it all MUCH cleaner by not having to deal with several states for each item like I did. I considered using variables, but I was trying to make my slides as reusable as possible, so I opted for the states. It wouldn't be hard to just make more variables, though.
When I made my example in SL1, I was using the built-in player buttons, so I couldn't disable/enable the Submit button on the fly. The features in SL2 will make this a lot easier in that I can keep the Submit button disabled until all selections have been made (similar to your use of a custom submit button).
Also, after posting my example, I made additional changes by adding items to the review layer to show all of the correct answers and show a green check mark next to any correctly chosen answers. This added more development time, but it made the feedback a lot more helpful as it doesn't leave the learner wondering which selections were correct.
Thanks for sharing!
Charles, I went ahead and tried your example on the mobile player using an android tablet, and it works really well except for when you tap into a dropdown and then try to tap away from it without making a new selection. The "tap-away" (or tap outside of the dropdown) only hides the dropdown layer if the selection is within the hotspot surrounding that particular dropdown. It seems like an easy fix would be to just make the hotspots the size of the slide, or add a click outside trigger or something.
Thanks everyone for the great ideas. They help me get to where I needed to get to.
I used the pick many (multiple response) approach using the check boxes off page but struggled to get the correct feedback if the learner got all questions wrong. I got the 'your answer isn't valid' response feedback as it was expecting at least one selection to mark. I got around this problem by including an extra check box off page with its state set to selected to make it think there'd been at least one selection in the question. Not 100% perfect but a good work around for me.
Thanks for that update Andrew and glad you were able to figure out a set up that worked for you! If you still want folks to take a look feel free to post your .story file here so that we can take a look!
This post was removed by the author
Hi Andrew,
I also wanted to let you know that responding via email includes your signature here. You are welcome to edit the post to remove that if you'd like so that it is no longer public. Also if you meant to attach something as a part of this reply, attachments won't be posted when shared via the forums, so you'll need to visit this page to use the "add attachments" button.
Christine,
I love this example you shared but have the same question that others did. How did you specify the correct answers? I'm hoping this thread is still active! Thanks!
Hello Tom - This thread is a bit dated and Christine does not make it back to the forums often. Take a look at Chad's sample/explanation here and hopefully that will assist you.
Thanks!
OK, some impressive stuff here, but what if i wanted to do a response question which required one option selected from a dropdown? So no multple questions, just one from a dropdown?
Hi Alastair! There is some great stuff here. If you just need one question, you should still be able to follow the set-up that Christine shared above - maybe a pick one question type would work better, but set the slide up the same.
Otherwise, I'll leave it open to the community if they have any ways to create your custom design.