Using Lightbox Slides in E-Learning Courses #316

Using Lightbox Slides in E-Learning #316: Challenge | Recap

Lightbox slides give course designers an elegant solution for presenting learners with important resources without leaving the current slide. Some of the most common use cases for lightbox slides include:

  • Job aids and handouts
  • Tables of contents and menu navigation
  • Extended resources and reading lists
  • Video how-tos and other types of media

How Do Lightbox Slides Work?

Lightbox slides are loaded on top of the current slide and resized to 80% of the original slide. To help learners focus on the lightbox content, the main slide background is dimmed, emphasizing the lightbox.

Storyline 360 Lightbox Slides

The best part about Storyline's lightbox slides is that any slide in your course can be used as a lightbox slide. This means any slide in your course (menu, dashboard, quiz results, interaction) can double as a lightbox slide.

There are dozens of practical uses for lightbox slides. Let's look at a couple of examples.

Workplace Learning & Performance

This meet-the-team interaction from Joe Waddington is a fantastic example of how lightbox slides can reuse content across an entire course. 

Each team member profile presents both individual and shared information. Personal info like one's name, job title, bio, and StrengthsFinder profiles are presented on the slide. But the shared info, the StrengthsFinder profile definitions, are loaded as lightbox slides since they're generic descriptions of each strength.

Workplace Learning & Performance

View project | Learn more & download | Joe Waddington

DiSC Insights for Managers

I like to share Jodi's example in my lightbox webinars because it shows how lightbox slides can be used to present content while helping learners remain focused in the moment without jumping out to new slides or scenes. 

DiSC Insights for Managers

View project | Download | Jodi Sansone

Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to share one or more examples that demonstrate how lightbox slides can be used in e-learning courses.

Share Your E-Learning Work

  • Comments: Use the comments section below to share a link to your published example and blog post.
  • Forums: Start  your own thread and share a link to your published example..
  • Personal blog:  If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We’ll link back to your posts so the great work you’re sharing gets even more exposure.
  • Twitter: If you share your demos on Twitter, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness.

Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you dive into this week’s challenge, check out the interactive timeline examples your fellow community members shared over the past week:

33 Creative Examples of Interactive Timelines in E-Learning #315

Interactive Timelines in E-Learning RECAP #315: Challenge | Recap

New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

225 Comments
Daniel Sweigert
Ron Katz
EAZA Learning
Tracy Carroll
Jodi M. Sansone
Kimberly Eng
Sara Wildman
Kimberly Eng
Sara Wildman
Thierry EMMANUEL
Ange CM
VaishnaviArt Story
Brian Carrender
Ange CM
Carrie Mills
Daniel Sweigert
Jacob Broadhead
Carrie Mills
Sara Wildman
Carrie Mills

Sara, that's a great question that I often struggle with when I'm designing. In creating this example, I opted not to include directions in different spots for different reasons. In a couple places, I omitted directions because I had hoped that the design was intuitive - like, click the numbers to reveal the timeline or clicking each major figure's portrait to learn more. In those instances, I certainly could have (and perhaps should have?) added directions, but omitted for the aesthetics. With the underlined names in the timeline, I omitted directions to click on the names because it wasn't essential to the step - certainly, I included the capability if someone experiencing it wanted an immediate biography, but I consider it auxiliary to the timeline itself (kinda like having a te... Expand

Jennifer Gupta
Ron Katz
Philippe Mekal
Nicki Berry