Storyline block does not autoplay in mobile

Oct 18, 2018

Hi. I attached a SL block on my Rise course and I wanted it autoplay on display. It is fine on desktop but when I preview on mobile, I notice that it doesn't autoplay. Any ideas on how to fix this? TIA.

31 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Alexander,

Do you see the play button similar to this screenshot: 

The play button you see on a mobile device is intended behavior for Storyline content on a phone. Adam explains more about that feature here!

Hope that helps clarify the setup, and let us know if you need anything else! 

Anthony Goss

Yes.  I have asked about this before.  I am fine with the user having to click to play.  However, it would be nice to have a "thumbnail" of the first slide with the play button instead of the default play button with the gray/black screen.  The player would look more seamless this way, similar to the way a video looks before you hit play.  

Allison LaMotte

Hi there, 

We've shied away from auto-playing storyline blocks because it's really non-standard on mobile devices. In fact, most phone browsers actually prevent auto-play of media; it needs to be user-initiated. 

I appreciate you chiming in with what you'd like to see, since the ideas shared here in E-Learning Heroes contribute to our product roadmap. 

We're monitoring these requests as we consider what features to add to Rise in the future. We'll let you know if we decide to allow autoplay in the future.

In the meantime, if there's anything else I can do to help, please let me know!

Michael Anselmo

Our client doesn't see this as a feature.  We need the course to flow as if it were all done in Rise.  They like the look of the rise courses, and SL just doesn't seem to look right on mobile for the courses we are creating.  Maybe I'm just not designing them properly over all in SL?  We used SL360 blocks to create some rating scales selections, and we want them to be able to see them all when they scroll to reflect on their answers.  It just doesn't flow well and looks terrible with black boxes.  I'm sorry, I really like the Articulate tools and have been a big promoter, but using Rise is getting a bit frustrating.  I think either Rise development needs to step up, or SL needs to be truly responsive...again, sorry; I convinced them to buy licenses, and I think they are beginning to regret this.  I love working with SL, but in this case we started with Rise (as I mentioned, they like the look and flow of the courses), and all of the users will only be consuming the content on mobile devices.

Is there anywhere I can see what's next with the development (Features, etc.)?  I am pretty new to Rise, and every time I look up how to do something, it seems to come up short.  I see a lot of comments regarding suggestions and passing the info along, but how do we know what is really being worked on, what's next, and when we will see it?  I feel a little bad ranting, but as I said, I am getting a little frustrated, and starting over with another tool is really going to cost us.

Thanks for "listening". :-)

Crystal Horn

Hello, Michael. We're always here to listen to you.

On mobile phones, Storyline blocks will play full screen to make sure your slide content displays at an optimal size. Since tablets and desktop screens are a bit larger, your Storyline block content will display inline with the Rise 360 lesson.

It sounds like you are designing really simple Storyline slide content that needs to display within the Rise 360 lesson and not full screen by itself. Since we don't have the option to keep the Storyline block inline on mobile phones, I'll document this request!

We don't have a public-facing roadmap. As we prioritize and develop new features, we do our best to keep you up to date here in the discussions. I can say that we have some other ideas in the pipeline, so a feature like this wouldn't be immediately available.

Martin Arneberg

Is there any update on this topic? We also produce Rise courses for clients, and share Michaels concerns regarding the look and flow.

The SL-plugins we add are small interactive activities, designed to work inline on small screens. So it feels clunky for the user to click a big play button in order to answer a simple question.

Irina Poloubessov

Hi Ashley, that's a pity that this is an intendend "affordance" with the play button on non-video block -  this is quite confusing: on mobile "play" button perplexes users if this is not a video content, because they expect video behind (even if textual instruction is given a few lines before - people sometimes are not too attentive), and it takes them a few moments to realize why suddelny you can click on stuff inside. 

Irina Poloubessov

Hi Allison,
Not every storyline block (which is non-video) has automatic autoplay. Sometimes it can be a step-by-step click-through software demo, embedded in Rise, and then we expect users to interact with it. And on mobile devices not too gadget-experienced users get perplexed for a moment not figuring out why if this looks "like a video" - you actually need to click something. Even inspite of the accompanying explanation and all kind of "click me:" highlights :-) 
Just because video play button has such a strong imprint in people's perception.

Bas Bruggink

I hope a solution will be found soon!

The first reaction I got while showing a storyline block via the mobile version was: why isn't the video playing?

Another issue with SL-blocks on mobile devices is the invisible layer with the small grey X to close the SL-interaction. A lot of people overlook the X and assume the course has frozen (as the "video" didn't start playing... 

Ronda Otey

Hello...I am having the same problem. I have multiple Storyline Blocks in several Rise courses and when switching to mobile the play button comes up but when I click it nothing happens. I cannot get the SL Block to play. Do I need to adjust the Player or the how I publish? If I cannot get the SL Blocks to work in Rise I will need to move these sections out of SL and into Rise blocks. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you

Crystal Horn

Hi there, Denise. We don't have immediate plans to enhance the X button to close Storyline blocks on mobile devices.

While we're still monitoring the impact, the best suggestion is to let learners know how to close that interaction with some on-screen instructions. Hopefully that will help mitigate most of the confusion!

Brad Aleman

I really want to emphasize how poor of an experience this is for users, and how strongly I believe there should at least be an option to make the Storyline block just a natural part of the course. It's really holding Rise back from its full potential, especially on mobile. To be totally blunt: we do not use Storyline blocks at all, solely because it's so unintuitive for users in the current state. And we really, really want to use Storyline blocks.

Storyline blocks should be readily interactable just like every other block, rather than locked away in box that looks like a video. I know the current setup is the intended behavior, but it's a really, really bad intended behavior. The rationale given in the post linked earlier is that it respects the limited phone screen size, but have you seen phone screens lately? They're massive. And shouldn't the onus be on the content creator to design their Storyline blocks with respect to screen sizes, rather than simply being hindered?