How I Built This Payroll 101 Course With Studio ’13

Community members often look to their peers for examples of completed courses that can serve as inspiration. I thought I’d share a Studio ’13 course I created: it’s called “Payroll 101,” and explains payroll practices to new hires at ACME Inc. It includes elements from Presenter, Engage, and Quizmaker. I’m going to highlight some of the key decisions and factors I considered when designing this simple e-learning course.

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Click to launch the course.

Create Branching Using Hyperlinks

My main content is all accessible from this menu slide. Here you’ll notice buttons at the top that link to my various Engage interactions, as well as a blue button on the bottom that links to the final quiz. In the center is a list of different items the learner can look at. Incorporating branched slides into your course is one way to get out of the “linear” mind-set-simply use hyperlinks to link to other slides in your project.

This allows the learner to explore the four tasks in whatever order they want, instead of forcing them through a linear, click-next-style course.

Add Interactivity with Engage

One super-simple way to make static content more dynamic for your Studio courses is to use Engage interactions. Does your course contain boring text or images that need a little spicing up? Twenty interaction styles make it easy to choose a type that works well for whatever your subject matter is. I was able to make the interactions look streamlined, like they are part of the course, by using a consistent color scheme and the same fonts.

Use Freeform Slides in Quizmaker to Create a Custom Quiz

Finally, I added a basic quiz built using the Freeform quiz slide option that’s available in Quizmaker ’13. It gives you tons of flexibility over exactly how you want your slide to look. There’s no problem keeping the look and feel consistent with the rest of your course. The use of a blurred background and a light color scheme makes this quiz look fresh and clean.

There you have it, folks! Creating a streamlined and polished Studio ’13 course that uses elements from Engage and Quizmaker is as easy as 1-2-3. Do you have any examples of great-looking Studio courses that inspire your designs? If so, please share a link and comment below!

You can always sign up for a fully functional, free trial of Articulate software. And don’t forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We’re here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.

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Alphonso Hendricks