Designing Immersive Phone Conversations in Storyline
Ever have two characters talk in a training module, but it still feels flat; even with speech bubbles, audio, and triggers? This (FREE) Storyline phone conversation template changes that. Whether you're designing for sales, compliance, healthcare, or support, it creates real, layered convos that feel like you're eavesdropping on a call. Animated phone effects Realistic voiceover dialogue Transparent APNG waveforms (way better than GIFs!) Custom triggers for pick-up/end call Clean, modern layout with animated text Watch how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMpUcYJRNnE Preview the demo: https://www.redesignedminds.com/Discuss/story.html Download it free: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19AvmE7q3PAUbXoNKIViQtPNqCwUoFDQW/view?usp=sharing If your training includes a conversation, this is how you bring it to life.A Career in Learning Design
This project started with a simple idea — what if you could follow one person's entire learning design career, step by step? "The ID Path” is a character-based experience that follows the fictional career journey of Olivia Wilson, a learning designer whose path begins as a Junior ID Assistant and evolves into a leadership role as a Chief Learning Strategist. The goal is to highlight not just career progression, but also how responsibilities and skills evolve along the way. About the project Viewers can explore five key roles from Olivia’s career using a timeline of circular photo icons. Each click opens a Polaroid-style pop-out layer where Olivia’s portrait is paired with a brief story and three key skills that define that stage. The character pop-out effect is used within each profile layer. Implementation The character and portraits were created using ChatGPT and AI image tools, simulating a consistent persona as she grows across decades. Layout, voiceover, and accent colors were designed to keep the interaction simple, warm, and story-driven. Try the demo Follow Olivia’s journey and explore how her roles shaped who she became. About Me Jayashree Ravi Curious about more e-learning innovations? Connect with me on LinkedIn to share ideas, discuss implementation techniques, or discuss instructional design challenges.How To Embed An ElevenLabs Conversational AI Widget Into SL360 Using JS!
Hi Heroes, It feels like something new and exciting is always around the corner in the world of generative AI technology, and this week ElevenLabs put themselves firmly in the driving seat of the agentic AI revolution with their new Conversational AI toolkit. If you haven't heard of this yet, check out this video which explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-EYzZCLF48&ab_channel=ElevenLabs The interactive, animated widget that this toolkit provided is easy to embed anywhere, including directly within an Articulate Storyline 360 project slide! If you're interested in how to get started, I've written a blog post that includes all the steps, including an Execute JavaScript snippet you can use to effortlessly get your agent loaded into your activity: https://discoverelearninguk.com/how-to-set-up-elevenlabs-conversational-ai-widget-in-articulate-storyline-360/ I'm also currently experimenting with the API for the new Conversational toolkit to understand how I can implement it into my eLearning Magic Toolkit plugin for Storyline + WordPress, potentially opening the door for developing real-time voice activated automation all within a Storyline-built eLearning activity! Much more to come very soon. 🚀 --- My name's Chris Hodgson, an eLearning developer and software trainer based in the UK. I enjoy creating fun, unique, and engaging online experiences using Articulate software! Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishodgson44/An AI-Powered Knowledge Check in Storyline
I've been wrestling with this challenge for a while: How do we get learners to reflect without relying on quiz after quiz? How can we use open-ended questions to encourage deeper thought? I've long considered AI for this, but there were hurdles... How do you integrate it into an Articulate Storyline course without paying for tokens or setting up contracts? And how do you do it without leaking credentials in the course itself? Can it be done without having to modify code after exporting the course? I learned recently that Hugging Face Transformers provide a solution. You can now download an AI model to the learner's machine and run it locally in their browser. I've managed to get this running reliably in Storyline, and you don't have to modify the code after export! In the final slide of the demo, your goal is to recall as much as possible from the podcast/summary. The AI will then check your response and give you a percentage score based on what you remembered. Live demo & tutorial here: https://insertknowledge.com/building-an-ai-powered-knowledge-check-in-storyline/ If you want to learn how I recommend starting with the sentiment analysis because it's easier to get started. I've also provided a file to download in that tutorial if you want to reverse engineer it.AI Assistant: Writing and Editing Inline Content
Generating content using the power of AI takes just seconds. However, without proper guidance, AI-generated content can be generic or out of step with your writing style and brand voice. Luckily, AI Assistant can be your new writing partner, helping you create and perfect content quickly—while you stay in control of the finished product. Available in Rise 360 and Storyline 360, AI Assistant’s write and edit inline feature allows you to generate or refine content right within your favorite authoring app. In Rise 360, click the Quick Insert icon in a text block with no content and choose the Write with AI option (sparkle icon), or select existing text to bring up a floating toolbar and choose the Edit with AI option. AI Assistant in Rise 360 is context-aware, referencing lesson material surrounding the current block, the target audience defined during course outlining, and source documents to generate relevant and cohesive content. For Storyline 360, access write and edit inline from the AI Assistant menu within the ribbon or click the sparkle icon from the floating toolbar when you select existing text. AI Assistant in Storyline 360 only draws references from general knowledge based on its training data. Ready to learn how to enhance your writing and editing with AI Assistant? Keep reading for tips to help you dive in. Improve Your Writing Beat Writer’s Block Get Prompt Engineering Help Help Learners Understand Complex Topics Improve Your Writing AI Assistant’s write and edit inline feature makes it easy to simplify content for accessibility, apply formatting, highlight key terms, add relevant emojis, and organize content into a list or table. You can also ask AI Assistant to find and address grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes—or take advantage of the many other options available in the dropdown menu shown below. Pro tip: Aren’t sure where to start but want to give your writing a quick boost? Click Improve writing and let AI Assistant upgrade your content. Beat Writer’s Block AI Assistant's write and edit inline feature not only helps you refine existing content—it can also generate new content from scratch! It's perfect for those times when you just feel stuck. To get started, click the Quick Insert icon in a text block with no content. Then, choose the Write with AI option to bring out the dropdown menu. Select a prebuilt prompt, type in your desired topic, and press Enter. Continue to enhance the content using custom prompts until everything is perfect. Get Prompt Engineering Help Having difficulty figuring out an AI Assistant prompt to generate just the right image for your course? The write and edit inline feature can help you compose a detailed, effective prompt for image generation. Select your content and click the sparkle icon from the floating toolbar. Enter a custom prompt or select the Create an AI image prompt option from the dropdown menu. AI Assistant will generate a prompt based on the selected content. Once AI Assistant has generated the prompt, click the Copy option to save it onto the clipboard. Help Learners Understand Complex Topics Using AI Assistant’s write and edit inline feature is like having a writing expert at your side, ready to assist you throughout the course creation process. For example, you can prompt AI Assistant to analyze and explain your content or ask for key takeaways that summarize your main points effectively. This helps ensure that learners will also be able to grasp your essential messages. Need to make your content more relatable and engaging? Ask AI Assistant to generate analogies to help learners draw connections between complex ideas and familiar concepts. Or, provide a well-structured scenario. AI Assistant can generate a scenario based on your selected content in seconds. By working through a relatable situation, learners grasp the nuances of the topic and can visualize how these concepts apply to real-world contexts. Note that AI Assistant’s write and edit inline feature doesn’t support media or HTML/CSS styling of inline content. And while Rise 360 supports emojis, tables, and lists within inline content, Storyline 360 only supports lists. Video Tutorials Want to learn more before getting started? Check out our video tutorials for additional guidance on using AI Assistant to write and edit inline content. Write and edit inline content in Rise 360 Write and edit inline content in Storyline 360 Articulate 360 Training also has additional video tutorials on using other AI Assistant features. Use AI Assistant features in Rise 360 Use AI Assistant features in Storyline 360 You must be logged in to your Articulate 360 account to watch the videos. Don’t have an account yet? Sign up for a free trial now!Interrogating the Future: An AI Confession
“The suspect knew too much about AI. Or maybe… she just knew how to answer the right questions.” Check out the recorded Pod Cast Here: Interrogating the future How It All Began It started as a simple reflection, ten questions about how AI is shaping my design work. But instead of writing a straight blog, I found myself drawn to something more atmospheric. Something that felt like the process itself, shadowy, uncertain, full of creative tension. So, I turned the reflection into a crime-show-style interrogation, complete with tape recorder hums, flickering lights, and a narrator whose voice demanded answers. The irony? Every part of the production was built with AI. The words, the sound, the visuals, even the interrogation room itself, were all digitally generated and then manually composed by me. Built by AI, Crafted by Hand I started by feeding the ten questions into ChatGPT, but instead of plain responses, I asked for a script. Together, we created a dialogue between a suspicious interrogator and me — a learning designer “accused” of collaborating with Artificial Intelligence. Then came the layers: Voice: generated using AI text-to-speech, giving each character a distinct tone and rhythm. Sound Effects: sourced and blended through AI-assisted sound libraries; tape clicks, fluorescent hums. Images: created with AI image generation and enhanced in Photoshop’s Generative Expand to build the noir interrogation room. Editing: every frame and cue assembled manually — timed to each pause, each flicker, each breath. It wasn’t just automation, it was orchestration. Why Noir? Noir has always been about truth hiding in plain sight. It’s smoky, suspicious, human. And that’s exactly how AI feels right now, part mystery, part revelation. The interrogation format gave me a way to ask the big questions: Is AI saving us time or stealing our craft? Can it really understand empathy, context, and culture? Or is it just pretending well enough to fool us — and our learners? The Real Interrogation Behind the theatrics, the project became a metaphor for the design process itself. Every day, learning designers interrogate ideas: “What’s the story here?” “What does the learner need?” “Is this real, or just noise?” AI doesn’t replace that questioning, it amplifies it. It’s like having an endless brainstorm partner who never sleeps, never stops suggesting, and occasionally hands you brilliance on a platter. The Craft of Collaboration What fascinated me most was the balance. AI built the assets — but I gave them shape. It’s a partnership that works best when humans stay in control of tone, meaning, and emotional truth. “AI gave me the pieces. But I had to make them make sense.” That’s the new creative muscle, knowing when to hand over, when to edit, and when to override. Lessons from the Interrogation Room By the end, I realised the project wasn’t about AI at all, it was about agency. The ability to stay curious, playful, and skeptical, even when technology feels all-knowing. If AI has a role in the future of learning design, it’s not to automate creativity, it’s to augment it. To make space for designers to ask better questions, faster. To amplify storytelling, not silence it. Final Word So yes, I built my own interrogation. I wrote the script with AI. I voiced it with AI. I scored, illustrated, and expanded it with AI. And then I did what no algorithm could: I stitched it all together with intuition, timing, and story sense. Because creativity isn’t about the tools you use. It’s about what you do with them.Fun Animated Timer for Gamification Projects
Hi Articulate heroes, I wanted to highlight one very fast but fun-looking way to create timers for interactive projects. I've learned about this way from "Gamification Series; 05: Creating Tension with Timers." You can check out these amazing webinars Gamification series, and there was a few different ways to add timers to projects. I used it in my recent project "Cooking Frienzy" - Jeopardy-style cooking-game. (btw you can check out the full game: Cooking Frienzy So, here are the steps: 1) Create / find a "timer" picture - it could be any image with transparent background what works for your theme (in my case it is "Pomodoro" timer, made with AI help, saved as .png ) 2) Add this image as a picture (insert an image). 3) Go to Animation tab 4) Choose Exit Animation - "Wipe", go to "Effect Options" - "From Right". Set the animation timer for whatever time you need (10 sec., 30 sec., 1 min etc.) 5) Set triggers to what will happen after the timer is done (animation completed): i.e. jump to the next slide, show "result-fail" etc. 6) Preview and adjust if needed 🤞
