How to Easily Create Branching Scenarios in Rise 360
Scenarios are one of my favorite ways to immerse learners and give them a safe space to practice applying a new process, or to explore the nuances of performing their jobs. You’ll see two types of scenarios: linear or branched. I use linear scenarios when I need to help learners explore a series of sequential steps or practice applying a simple process. But when I really want my learners to practice decision-making and fine-tune their performance, I lean on branching scenarios. Creating scenarios, particularly branching scenarios, used to require a lot of time. But now, whether I need a linear or a branched scenario, creating one is quicker and easier than ever with the new scenario block in Rise 360. Using the scenario block, I was able to create the following interactive branching scenario in just a few minutes’ time! In this scenario, I give restaurant servers an engrossing way to practice upselling their customers to more expensive menu items. Check it out! View my scenario block in action Want to see how easy it is to create a branched scenario like mine with the scenario block? Keep reading. I’ll give you a quick walk-through of the process I followed. Spoiler alert: it’s super-simple—and fun! Overview of the Process Creating a branched scenario boils down to just four steps: Add a scenario block to your lesson. Add a scene or scenes to your scenario block (I’ll explain more about those below). Customize your scenes with Content Library 360 characters and background images. Add content text and branching. Let’s do a quick walk-through of each step. Add a Scenario Block to Your Lesson Scenario block is an interactive block type, so you’ll find it under the interactive blocks menu. Here’s how to navigate to it. Select All Blocks from the blocks shortcut bar. Or, click the insert block icon (+) that appears when you mouse-over a boundary between blocks. Scroll down and choose the interactive category in the block library, and select Scenario. This animated .GIF should point you in the right direction: Add a Scene or Scenes to Your Scenario Block Scenarios are made up of scenes that are, in turn, made up of content. If you’re planning to build a linear scenario, you might find you only need one scene for your project. But if you want to build a branching scenario, you’ll want to add more scenes to your project so you can change characters and backgrounds and branch to other content based on the learner’s choices. For example, in my project, I used three scenes to align with the three skills I needed my learners to practice. To add a scene, just mouse-over your scenario block and click the Edit button that appears. Here’s an animated .GIF to demonstrate how to add a scene to your scenario block: Customize Your Scene(s) Now you’re ready to customize your scenes with Content Library 360 characters and a background image. To customize your scene, click either Edit Background or Edit Character. I found the perfect backdrop for my scene right in Content Library 360, but you can upload an image of your own if you’d like. I also found the perfect character for my scene, Ammon, right in Content Library 360. Here are two more animated .GIFs of these steps. Add Content, Text, and Branching With your scenario block inserted and your scenes customized with the perfect characters and background, you’re ready to add content, pop in text, and add some branching. 1. Start by clicking the Add Content button. From there, you can choose between dialogues and informative text content. Whichever option you choose, you can still offer learners multiple paths to take through the scenario. In my example I used a mix of both types; dialogues to simulate a conversation and informative text content to reinforce feedback. To add dialogue to a scene, just choose dialogue from the content type drop-down menu in the upper right of the title bar. Here’s a .GIF showing you where to find that drop-down menu: 2. Now you can type or copy in text content for your dialogues or informative text. You can also type or copy in text for answer options and feedback. 3. With all of your content in place, you’re ready to add branching by using the Go to menu to specify where you’d like the learner to go next. By default, learners are taken to the next piece of content in the scene. To change that, just link to a different piece of content or to another scene. This gives you loads of flexibility, so you can do things like loop learners through a scene until they select the correct answer option, as I did. Or, you could gradually lead them down a path until they reach the end of the scenario. The choice is yours and the creative options are endless. Pro Tip: I like to preview my scenario from the beginning just to make sure everything is flowing the way I want it to. Here’s how you can do that, right in the scenario block: And when my scenario block is perfect, I like to save it as a block template so I can quickly reuse it in my current course or in future courses. I feel like I’m doing my future self a big favor and saving even more design time! I’m convinced that creating branched scenarios just doesn’t get much faster or easier than with scenario block. Ready to learn more about scenario block? Don’t miss Tom Kuhlmann’s awesome, step-by-step video tutorial on working with scenario blocks in Rise 360. Want to see more scenario blocks in action? Check out my full course example, 3 Techniques for Successful Upselling. And if you haven’t already, jump on over to Rise 360 and take a few minutes to play around and explore all the exciting new possibilities with scenario block. Then swing back by and let me know: what will you create with the new scenario block? Share your ideas in the comments, below. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Help Learners Practice Their Skills with Scenarios in Rise 360
Scenarios are a great way to bring your training to life. They add authenticity and personality to your courses through the use of characters and dialogue. Topics that are often challenging to train on, such as soft skills, are the perfect type of material for scenarios. Creating scenarios is faster and easier than ever with the scenario block in Rise 360. To add a scenario block to your course, pop into any existing lesson and expand the All Blocks library. You’ll find the scenario block under the interactive blocks. Here’s an animated .GIF to show you what I mean: Click to add a scenario block to your lesson and then click the Edit button on the scenario block to start customizing it with a character, background image, and dialogue and feedback text. Once you get the gist of customizing scenario blocks, you’ll probably start thinking of brand new ways to add branching and linear scenarios to your courses. To kick-start your creativity, here are a few ideas for the types of content you can bring to life with scenarios. Soft Skills Training topics like communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and other soft skills are notoriously difficult because they're nuanced and contextual. Scenarios, particularly branching scenarios, are a great fit for training these types of topics because you can presentrealistic situations that are more nuanced and give people a chance to experience the consequences of their choices. Practice your interviewing skills in this scenario. Customer Service Training Providing customers with a consistent, high-quality experience is vital to your business. That means your customer service reps need a space to practice their customer interactions and learn from their mistakes. The scenario block in Rise 360 is a great way to simulate a customer conversation since you can use the characters’ facial expressions and feedback to let learners know how they’re doing in the scenario—and whether their customer service skills are up to par. Practice four essential customer serviceskills in this scenario. Sales Conversations Sales conversations can be difficult, but practicing them has never been easier thanks to the scenario block in Rise 360. Use the characters to bring sales conversations to life and practice selling techniques without any pressure or risk, as you can see in the example below. Have a sales conversation in this scenario. I think these ideas and examples show how easy it is to bring training materials to life with the scenario block. What do you think? How are you using scenario blocks to upskill your learners? Share your experiences with us in a comment. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.5 Different Ways to Create Scenarios in Rise 360
If you’ve ever used the scenario block in Rise 360, you know how quick and easy it is to build an engaging interaction fast. But did you know there’s more than one way to create a scenario in Rise 360? With so many block options, it’s simple to customize your course design to fit your learners’ needs. Using the same scenario script, I created 5 versions of the same scenario using different lesson and block types. Let’s look at each of them and talk about when it makes sense to choose one option over the other. 1. Scenario Block Like I mentioned earlier, the Scenario Block in Rise 360 makes it super fast and easy to make your course more interactive. This is the most commonly used block for branching scenarios because everything is already built for you. You can quickly customize the block with Content Library 360 images and characters and then add your own dialogue, responses, and feedback. Use case: It’s best to use this block when you want to build a scenario fast! 2. Button Stack Block For this example, and examples 3 and 4, I inserted the same Image & Text Block to introduce the customer and the scenario, but chose different blocks to display answer options. In this case, I used the Button Stack Block. Button stacks can be used to send emails, access external information easily, or jump to other spots in a course. In this example, I used the button stack as answer options for the scenario. The learner selects a response and is directed to another lesson based on their answer. Use case: This block is useful if your custom feedback includes a lot of text or if you want to provide more contextual information based on a learner’s response—like a lesson with additional images, text, and block types that goes into more depth about that topic. 3. Flashcard Grid Block The Flashcard Grid Block is another option for your story-based interactions. With just one click you can define terms, reveal text, and much more. For this scenario example, I used the cards to display both answer options. The learner can click either option and get specific feedback based on their selection. So if a learner chooses the correct answer but wants to explore why the other answer is incorrect, they can! Use case: When you want to give the learner the option to easily view the consequences of more than one action, whether correct or incorrect—for example, if there are multiple correct answers but one of them is better than the other. 4. Knowledge Check Block Since knowledge checks are ungraded and don’t report a score, they’re a good way to provide a safe space for learners to reflect and practice applying what they’re learning in a low-pressure environment. And the great thing about knowledge checks is that you can build them right within a lesson! That’s exactly what I did in this example. Use case: Use this block when you want to quickly test learners’ knowledge within a lesson and the feedback only includes text. 5. Quiz Lesson Sometimes you need to do more than just check in with learners—for example, evaluate how much they’ve learned. That’s where quiz lessons come in! Quizzes are scored and report that information to your Learning Management System (LMS). For this example, I used a multiple choice question. Use case: If you need to track learners’ scores in your LMS, this is the option you’ll want to choose. Wrap-Up These are just a few creative ways to build scenarios in Rise 360 and when you might want to use them in your projects. Of course, you’re not limited to just these options. With so many lesson and block types, the possibilities are limitless. What creative ways have you used to present scenarios in your Rise 360 courses? Please share them in the comments below! If you liked the scenario examples above, you can see them in action here. Want to learn how to create realistic scenarios learners can relate to? Check out these helpful articles: 7 Tips for Writing Effective E-Learning Scenarios Help Learners Practice Their Skills with Scenarios in Rise 360 How to Choose the Point of View (POV) for Your E-Learning Scenario Want to start creating your own scenarios in Rise 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.How I Designed This Immersive Scenario on Prioritizing Tasks
Recently my fellow instructional designers Sarah Hodge and Madison McCartney and I teamed up to prove that there’s always more than one way to present course content. Each of us created a mini-course on prioritizing tasks, using the Eisenhower Decision Matrix as our starting point. In this article, I’m going to walk you through how I got from this: … to this: View interactive version | Download template Without further ado, let’s get into it! Setting the Scene Since I created this project as an example, there’s no real target audience, much less learning objectives. But to make it feel realistic I set some basic parameters to guide my design thinking. Here’s what I came up with: Audience: Novice e-learning project managers Learning objective: Be able to identify tasks, classify them as important and/or urgent, and prioritize them accordingly Coming Up with the Concept Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of great e-learning examples in the E-Learning Heroes community, but a few really stand out to me. One in particular is this time management game by Phil Eagles. I love the way he took a series of simple multiple choice questions and made them into a scenario that feels real and meaningful. And since time management is so closely related to task prioritization, it’s the first thing I thought of when I started brainstorming ideas for my project. I wanted to create something similar—but put my own spin on it. Because I wanted to create a totally custom and immersive scenario, Storyline 360 was the perfect choice for this project. I decided to simulate a desk and let learners identify tasks and prioritize items for themselves. The idea behind this was to emulate real life—where learners have to identify tasks and decide which ones to do first—while also following one of the key principles of adult learning by giving them control over their learning experience. Refining the Scenario Once I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, it was time to iron out the scenario details. I wanted to give learners enough opportunities to practice prioritizing tasks without it feeling repetitive. I included a few different types of tasks—since that’s what it’s like in real life. In the end, I settled on a total of six tasks, including a few emails, a couple of text messages, and a Post-it. As I started to build out my scenario, I ran into some challenges. One of the main issues was that my slide was getting overcrowded. To overcome this challenge and help learners focus on one thing at a time, I divided the process of task prioritization into two parts: Step 1: identify and analyze the tasks to determine how urgent/important they are Step 2: prioritize the tasks based on their level of urgency/importance For step one, I used a series of toggles so the learner can decide if each task is urgent and/or important. Based on their answer, I provide custom feedback. This is how that turned out: For step two, I made a simple drag-and-drop interaction so the learner can decide where each task belongs on their to-do list based on its level of urgency and importance. Here’s what that ended up looking like: Because this project was intended for adults who may have previous experience with the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, I made the explanation walk-through optional, as shown in the screenshot below: Is this how I initially envisioned my project? Absolutely not. To be honest, I don’t think I really had a clear mental picture of what it would look like. Some people can map out their entire project before they even open up the authoring app, while others do better jumping straight into building and get inspired along the way. Both methods are totally fine as long as you always keep your learners’ needs at the center of your design. Designing the Graphics As someone with no formal graphic design training, I can be challenged to come up with ideas for the look and feel of my courses. To find inspiration, I usually start by checking out the examples and templates on E-Learning Heroes as well as the Content Library 360 templates. Even if I don’t find exactly what I need, I usually come across something I can use as a starting point. Personally, I find that starting with a template is less intimidating than starting from a blank slide. And even if the final result ends up looking completely different than the original template, having something to start with helps me channel my ideas and inch closer to a place I feel good about. So, once I knew that I wanted to create an immersive scenario, I headed straight to E-Learning Heroes to look for templates I could use as a springboard for my design. A quick search for “desk” led me to this template, which I thought was perfect: Download Template After opening the template, I made some adjustments and played around with different color options. Here’s what my first version looked like: There’s nothing wrong with the way this looks, but—as I mentioned earlier in this article—it was at this point I realized there wasn’t enough room on the slide to allow learners to both identify and prioritize tasks in one spot. Splitting the activity up into two parts gave me more screen real estate to work with. Around this time, I also decided I wasn’t sure about the mint green wall and wanted to give white a try . . . . . . but I wasn’t totally sold on that either. I also felt lukewarm about the way the desk looked and decided to incorporate some texture. This is what the next version looked like: Wondering how I created the wood texture? I did a Google search for “flat design wood,” inserted one of the images I found onto my slide master, and then used the curve tool and shapes in Storyline 360 to achieve a similar effect. This is what it looks like behind the scenes: I was pretty happy with the way this looked, but when I started adding other objects to the screen, I realized they didn’t stand out enough against the dark blue background. That’s when I settled on the design you see in the final version: I went through a similar process for the other slides in my project, so I thought I’d share the different versions with you as well. . . . and here’s the final version. You’ll notice that in the final version I pulled in the computer screen from the previous slide to tie it together a bit more. I also changed the size of the boxes to make it all fit on the screen. As I was working on my core content slides, I also started to pull together my title slide. Since my other two slides used a flat design style, I wanted to stick with something similar. I found this simple slide template in Content Library 360 and used it as a starting point: I didn’t want to include characters, so I deleted those and changed the color of the background to match the dark blue I was using at the time. After taking out the characters and changing the color, I felt like the slide was too minimal. It was missing something, so I sat and thought about how I could incorporate more visual interest. That’s when I had an idea: what if the title slide was a view of the desk from above? And since we’re talking about prioritizing tasks—and many people write their to-do lists in a notebook—I thought that might make sense and look nice. So I went back to E-Learning Heroes for some inspiration and ended up finding this spiral notebook template: Download I imported it into Storyline 360 and made a few adjustments to make it all come together. Here’s what it ended up looking like: As you can see, graphic design isn’t always a straightforward process. It doesn’t necessarily go from zero to perfect in one fell swoop. In many cases it’s an iterative process involving incremental changes until you’re happy with what you’ve got. So the next time you’re feeling stuck and unsure about your design, try doing what I did and search E-Learning Heroes or Content Library 360 for a template you can use as a starting point. Then, make small changes here and there. Eventually you’ll get to a place where you feel good about your design. More Resources Hopefully you’ve found this inside look at my design process interesting and insightful! Remember, it’s okay if your first draft isn’t perfect. Design (whether it’s instructional or graphic) is a process, and it often takes trial and error to get it to where it needs to be. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! If you enjoyed this article and are looking for more insight into what goes on in the minds of instructional designers as they’re creating courses, be sure to check out these articles: How I Designed This Personalized Decision Matrix How I Designed This Interactive Dial Matrix A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How I Designed This Gamified Quiz Want to try building your own immersive scenario in Storyline 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Using Pre-Test Activities in E-Learning #382
Using Pre-Test Quizzes in E-Learning #382: Challenge | Recap As course designers, we should always look for ways to design better and more meaningful learning experiences. Unfortunately, using a one-size-fits-all approach in e-learning rarely meets the individual needs of the learners. Even in compliance and regulatory courses, there's an opportunity to sprinkle in personalized content and resources that address the individual needs of learners. That's where pre-tests can help. Using Pre-Test Activities Using pre-test activities at the beginning of the course or module, you can personalize the learning by: Identifying areas where learners need more (or less) support Giving learners customized recommendations Letting learners skip ahead to only those topics where they need the most help Pre-tests are like dress rehearsals for a play. They're designed to help the cast and crew figure out what works and what doesn't before the show actually happens. For course designers, figuring out what learners know and don't know can help improve the learning experience. And that's what this week's challenge is all about. Challenge of the Week This week, your challenge is to share a pre-test example to show how they can be used to personalize the learning experience. Resources 4 Ways to Use the New Quiz Tracking Features in Storyline 360Why and How I Created This Pre-Test in Rise 360 Examples Stitch Up a Tailored E-Learning Experience with These 4 Pre-Test Examples 5 Examples That’ll Put Your Knowledge to the Pre-Test 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 ownthreadand 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. Social Media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using#ELHChallengeso your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness. Last Week’s Challenge: Before you consider testing out of this week's challenge, check out the refreshing beverage-making examples your fellow challengers shared over the past week: Beverage-Making Techniques#381:Challenge|Recap New to the E-Learning Challenges? Theweekly e-learning challengesare ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of theprevious challengesanytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos. Learn more about the challenges in thisQ&A postand why and how to participate in thishelpful article. Quick Note About the Recap Posts on LinkedIn I like to promote the recaps with your examples on LinkedIn. I use the#elhchallengeand#elearningchallengetags to help others in the community find your examples. And most of the time, I tag you individually in the post. I find it helps boost the posts across your networks. I've recently heard from some folks who felt excluded because I didn't tag them in my LinkedIn recap posts. When that happens, it's because we're not connected or I couldn't find your profile. When that happens, let me know. I'm more than happy to update the post to credit your work. I know these demos take a few hours to make. That's a significant investment, so I like you to get as much mileage as possible from your work.Give Managers the Tools They Need With These Leadership Examples
No matter what stage of their career, managers need practical skills training to reach their full potential and help their teams do the same. These community-created examples cover a range of leadership topics to help managers with their development. So whether you need to train managers on the essentials, help seasoned team leads fine-tune their people skills, or create opportunities for managers to test their abilities in a simulated environment, we’ve got you covered. Explore some of our favorites below! Storyline: What’s Your Leadership Style? Help learners discover their leadership styles by answering thought-provoking questions in this illustrated project by Jackie Van Nice. Rise 360: New Manager’s Toolkit Share the advice and resources learners need for leading their first team with this project by Trina Rimmer. Storyline 360: How to Become a Good Leader Customize this illustrated template by Andrzej Jabłoński with your own content for a creative and interactive leadership course in no time at all. Storyline: Employee Conversation Branching Scenario Managers can practice navigating difficult conversations with employees using a role-playing exercise, like in this course by Eva Daniels. Rise 360: A Collection of TED Talks About Leadership Learn how to embed existing content from the web—such as inspirational videos—to create a soft skills training course for people leaders, like in this course by Trina Rimmer. Storyline 360: Team Manager Problem Scenarios Let learners explore common management challenges with the click-and-reveal interactions in this course by Karlis Sprogis. Rise 360: Leadership Skills Sketchnote Interaction This example by Samuel Apata shows how you can creatively introduce management skills using sketchnotes—the combination of photos, illustrations, and handwriting—with the help of Rise 360’s labeled graphic block. Storyline: The Leadership Challenge This template by Amelia Altstadt combines video, interactive elements, and self-reflection questions to bring the spirit of adventure to manager training. Wrap-Up Thanks to these examples, you can find exactly what you need for your next leadership training project—whether it’s a template you can customize for your needs or an immersive scenario that lets learners practice their skills. For even more inspiration, check out our weekly challenges, downloads, and examples. Or try using a prebuilt Rise 360 course template—there are tons available on the topic of leadership! What are your favorite methods for training people leaders? Share your thoughts in a comment below. Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.20+ Creative Ways to Use Interactive Video in E-Learning Courses #365
Interactive Video Examples RECAP #365: Challenge | Recap This week’s challenge recap features creative ideas for using interactive video in e-learning. Examples include video-based quizzes, scenarios, branching stories, and more! Michele Moore Example | Michele Moore Paul Alders Example | Download | Paul Alders | Website | @paulalders Danny Benton Example | Download | Danny Benton | Website Sharlene Daley Example | Sharlene Daley Karen Winters Example | Karen Winters Danny Benton Example | Danny Benton | Website Kim Wilkins Example | Kim Wilkins Dennis Gifford Example | Dennis Gifford Roy Phillips Example | Roy Phillips David Truzman Example | David Truzman Mikki Johnston Example | Mikki Johnston Peter Mercier Example | Peter Mercier Alexander Salas Example | Download | Alexander Salas | Website | @stylelearn Jodi M. Sansone Example | Download | Jodi M. Sansone | Website | @jodimsansone Thierry EMMANUEL Example | Thierry EMMANUEL Ron Katz Example | Ron Katz | Website Karin Lorbeck Example | Download | Karin Lorbeck Jonathan Hill Example | Jonathan Hill | Website | @DevByPowerPoint Daniel Cañaveral Example | Daniel Cañaveral Tracy Carroll Example | Tracy Carroll | Website | @1tracycarroll Kandice Kidd Example | Kandice Kidd Sarah Scott Example | Sarah Scott Samuel Apata Example | Samuel Apata | Website | @afrostem Morten Holdt Example | Morten Holdt Gabriella Vinci Example | Gabriella Vinci | Website Yekaterina Martynova Example | Yekaterina Martynova Ernesto Yannini Example | Ernesto Yannini | Website Elizabeth Budko Example | Elizabeth Budko New to the E-Learning Challenges? The weekly 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. 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. If you share your demos on Twitter, please include #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness. Share Your Interactive Video Examples! The 2022 interactive video challenge is still open! If you have one or more ideas you'd like to share, please jump over to the original challenge and post your links in the comments section. I'll update this recap page to include your examples.6 Things Video Games Can Teach You About Writing Engaging Scenarios
Scenarios have always been one of my favorite things to write as an instructional designer. I love coming up with different characters, deciding what makes them tick, and figuring out how that should impact what they say or do in the story. And while books, movies, and TV shows have taught me much of what I know about designing scenarios, at the end of the day video games have been an even better teacher. Sure, not every game has fully developed characters or a gripping plot—but the ones that do can be a great source of inspiration for e-learning scenarios. From the way you interact with the experience to the approaches used to write interesting and immersive stories, there’s so much shared DNA between games and learning scenarios. And it makes sense because they both have a similar goal: to find interesting ways to challenge their audience and help them improve their skills. This means I’ve now become that nerd who can’t play a video game without also being inspired to create future e-learning projects. Here are a few of the most helpful scenario-writing insights I’ve pulled from inadvertently turning my hobby into instructional design research. 1. A compelling plot trumps high-end graphics When you think about creating exciting scenarios, you might worry about not having the skills or resources to make cutting-edge visuals. Will it fall flat if the characters and setting don’t look photorealistic? Do you need to have a huge budget to make top-notch, custom graphics? Thankfully, video games have a resounding answer for you: no! When it comes to scenario-based games, it’s been proven time and time again that the story you tell often matters more to players than your graphics. One fantastic example of this is the game Lifeline. It’s a gripping, sometimes stressful, experience told entirely through text messages between the player and an astronaut lost in space. And as it plays out, the fact that you can’t see anything but text actually adds tension to the story. Another example of compelling storytelling paired with basic graphics is Reigns—a royalty simulator that uses simple cards to give you choices on how you want to rule. It’s incredible how quickly you can get immersed in the game even when there aren’t many visuals. Now, this isn’t to say your scenario’s aesthetics are meaningless. It’s more that if you have a limited amount of time and resources, it’s best to focus on crafting the story and keep the look and feel simple. 2. It's less fun when the right decision is obvious A common mistake I see in many learning scenarios is that it’s incredibly easy to guess what the best conversation or decision option is. Maybe it’s longer than the other choices, or the wording is strangely formal. Or perhaps the weaker options are so terrible that anyone would know they were a bad idea. When it doesn’t take much thinking to identify the correct choice, it quickly becomes boring. Instead, it’s better to give your audience challenging yet realistic decisions to ponder. Things that make them think hard about what the best option could be. And games have been doing this incredibly well for years. Take The Walking Dead series from Telltale Games. Set in a grim zombie apocalypse, this series excels at forcing players to make tough decisions where nearly every option has both strengths and drawbacks. And that difficulty gives those choices weight, drawing players into the story to evaluate their options and see what happens as a result. By using this approach in your scenarios, you can take full advantage of a significant strength of this format: making people think deeply about challenging situations. 3. Make sure your learners have enough information to succeed On the other side of the pendulum, you don’t want to make a scenario frustratingly hard either. I’ve seen training scenarios where learners aren’t given enough information to make informed decisions. For instance, sometimes they’re expected to act on content or character details that haven’t been shared with them. And when the only way to get the right answer is a lucky guess, learners tend to feel annoyed or tune out. This also happens quite frequently in video games. I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to make my game character stumble around every inch of a room to try and figure out what I might be able to interact with. Or how many times I’ve gotten so stuck in a game that I broke down and looked up a walkthrough to get spoilers on what to do next. These issues often result from learning professionals or game developers not realizing that what’s obvious for them as creators isn’t nearly as apparent to a player entering this world for the first time. This is why you’ll want to keep track of what information you’ve shared with learners (and when) as you plan out your scenario. Another good way to catch these issues is to have people who didn’t create the scenario test it out, as they can point out where things might still be unclear. 4. Think about the subtle ways you can give learners feedback Most people are familiar with the basic methods older games used to communicate how well (or terribly) you were doing: points and lives. And while these approaches are still used in many games today, story-based games often use more subtle and realistic signals instead. And think about it, what feels more woven into a scenario: an on-screen notification that you just gained 100 points or the character you’re talking to smiling at what you just said? One of the best video game genres to see this kind of story-based feedback is one you might not think of initially: dating simulations. Since the gameplay revolves around interpersonal communication, they’re a wealth of ideas for subtly signaling progress. Take the dating sim parody Hatoful Boyfriend. You can tell so much about how your conversation is going based on the written tone of the characters’ responses. And in Scarlet Hollow, a hybrid horror game and dating sim, characters often use body language to signal how they feel about your conversation choices. And that game also gives you access to different conversation options depending on whether you’re connecting with a character or irritating them. Subtle feedback like this is more similar to real-life situations, making for a more realistic experience for your learners. 5. Make dialogue sound conversational One thing that can quickly take conversations in a scenario from useful to unintentionally hilarious is awkward wording. When it’s noticeably different from how people actually talk, it can easily pull people out of a story. And when those speech patterns are also stilted and formal—a common issue in training scenarios—that further removes the experience from the real world. Video games have fantastic examples of just how bad this can get. Many older games are infamous for clunky writing, whether due to bad translations or too little thought put into the dialogue. For instance, I spent a good portion of my teenage years snickering every time someone opened their mouth in the Resident Evil series. But over the years, improvements in game writing (and voice acting) have shown how getting these things right can elevate the experience. Take this comparison of the original Resident Evil game dialogue versus a more recent remake. Sure, the updated writing still isn’t perfect, but it’s substantially better than the original and doesn’t inadvertently turn a horror game into a joke. So what’s the best way to avoid clunky 90’s video game dialogue in your scenarios? Read your script out loud as you’re drafting it. If it sounds weird as you say it, that’s a good sign that it could use reworking. 6. Don’t make it more fun to make bad choices than good ones One of my early gaming memories is playing SimCity on the computers at my middle school. While the official goal in the game was to create an ever-expanding metropolis, I instead took delight in taking that city and inflicting every disaster I could on it. What can I say—when a game gives you a monster attack option, how can you not use it?! Absurd destruction wasn’t remotely the point of the game, but I can’t deny it was fun. Sometimes even more fun than the actual game. This is important to keep in mind as you consider the different paths in your scenarios. It can be amusing as you’re writing to make the less desirable choices funny or over the top. Maybe your worst dialogue options are the snarky things people always wish they could say to rude customers. Or perhaps you hide Easter eggs in the experience that unlock silly bonus endings. Now, these choices aren’t in and of themselves wrong. But if you end up making it more enjoyable to do all the wrong things rather than use your scenario for practice, you can’t be surprised if your learners choose amusement over work. Fun is a crucial part of what makes game-like experiences like scenarios so engaging. Just make sure that the majority of the fun serves to reinforce the project’s learning goals. Wrap-Up So there you have it. Hidden in an admittedly frightful number of hours spent on solving puzzles to escape from a sinking cruise liner, exploring haunted islands, and being a horrible goose was also a goldmine of ideas for writing learning scenarios. From the most effective places to focus limited resources, how much information to give learners to keep things enjoyable but challenging, and where you should focus the fun factor to reinforce learning, video games are full of all sorts of insights we can apply to creating our own learning scenarios. So you know what that means: you now have solid justification to splurge on a few games in the name of work research! Have you picked up your own scenario-writing insights from gaming? Be sure to add them to the comments. And if you want to know even more about making compelling e-learning scenarios, check out these articles: 7 Tips for Writing Effective E-Learning Scenarios Build 3-Step Scenarios Like a Pro with Storyline 360 How to Easily Create Branching Scenarios in Rise 360 Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.How To Craft Branched Scenario Choices Like a Game Designer
Have you ever played through a branched scenario that worked properly from a technical perspective but didn’t feel interesting or realistic? That’s because the branching functionality is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to crafting scenarios that make an impact. Your scenario choices—both how you write them and how you use them—are just as vital for making this kind of learning experience meaningful. As you think about ways to use choice strategically, there’s a great source for inspiration that you might not have considered: video games. Game designers have been playing with ways to make scenario options engaging for decades. Let’s take a closer look at a few best practices we can glean from analyzing video game scenarios. Make early choices low stakes You know what’s really frustrating? Realizing you accidentally selected the wrong choice because you misunderstood the way the user interface works. That’s why many video games ease you into the controls by ensuring the first options you interact with don’t affect your branching or outcomes. These easier questions are essentially mini tutorials, giving you a chance to make a few mistakes risk-free. With a branched e-learning scenario, you might not have as much time to include guided practice as a multi-hour game, but you can probably afford to give learners an easy question or two at the beginning to help them get used to the way it works. Not all choices have to lead to new branches When you start doing the math on how many new branches each question could create, the idea of actually building a lengthy branched scenario can seem overwhelming. But video games have proven that you can still create realistic experiences without every choice changing things. One of the first games I played that was upfront about this was Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. When you make dialogue choices that impact the game branching, a message flashes on screen saying the other character will remember your decision. So when that doesn’t appear, you realize that your choice doesn’t alter the story. But knowing this doesn’t make those interactions seem less interesting or fun. After all, in real life not every option leads to different outcomes. As you plan out your scenario, here are some ways to save yourself development time: Since not all decisions have to lead to a new story branch, keep an eye out for times you can simplify where choices go next. Sometimes all your options will logically lead to the same next screen, such as if they’re just there for practice or to build out the story. And if you’re already providing immediate onscreen feedback about a choice, you might not need to have the story branch afterward to drive your point home. Look for times multiple answers can go to the same next screen. For instance, in simple situations where a scenario choice is either right or wrong, you might only need to create two branches no matter how many options you give learners. Just because your story branched doesn’t mean those new paths can’t come back together later.You can reunite branches when it makes sense for the situation. It’s okay to offer all bad or all good options Many learning scenario choices follow the same formula: one option is great, one’s just okay, and the final one is definitely worth avoiding. It’s not an inherently bad way to structure choices, but it’s often not realistic. Not only that, but in real situations sometimes none of the options available are good. The game Spent is a perfect example of how to apply this to scenarios. Designed to help people better understand the day-to-day challenges of poverty, players must weigh terrible options and try to pick the one that leads to the least harm. You don’t have any great choices in the game precisely because there aren’t great options in the real-life experiences it’s depicting. So if a situation you’re simulating wouldn’t have positive options, it’s okay to only offer weak choices and challenge learners to identify the least harmful one. Take a scenario where learners practice assisting angry customers. If they make enough mistakes along the way, it makes sense that eventually they’d run out of choices that could magically save the day. At some point, they might just need to do damage control to keep things from getting worse. This also works in reverse—sometimes it makes sense to offer multiple good options. Going back to our example, there’s often more than one way to help an upset customer. Starting the scenario with several different good choices could help learners figure out which approach feels most natural for them. Ripple effects of past choices can unlock additional options Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? They were a fun, low-tech way to experience the kind of story branching we use in e-learning scenarios today. But the branching in these stories was simplistic, with each set of options operating in isolation. That’s why the move to digital has been so helpful for this type of storytelling—there’s now a way for the story to “remember” your choices. And this opens up all sorts of new possibilities to adjust your story branches or conversation options based on one or more past decisions. Visual novel games like One Night, Hot Springs do a great job of showing how much this can deepen a story. Just like in real situations, the things you say or do change how characters relate to you for the rest of the game—not just immediately afterward. New conversation options open up because of past reactions. And some story paths can only be unlocked if you make a specific combination of choices earlier. While this level of complexity isn’t always needed, it can enhance scenarios involving conversations or interpersonal relationships. That makes it a good fit for training “soft skills,” like difficult conversations, coaching, interviewing, and more. It also works well for escape room scenarios where learners need to find items and solve puzzles in a specific order. Time limits can mimic stress Few things can amp up the pressure like a clock ticking down. And that stress can make scenarios more realistic and motivate learners to think fast—when used strategically. Video games use time limits to shift behavior in all sorts of ways, from the time field in Super Mario Bros. that encourages you to speed through levels to the bomb countdown timer in Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes that turns up your anxiety and makes it easier to make mistakes. These limits can increase the difficulty of a level or pressure you to speed up how you play. But in the case of Keep Talking, the timer also makes the situation feel more realistic. While time limits can be a strong motivator in e-learning scenarios, they can also backfire if you’re not careful with how and when you use them. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when using them: Allow learners to opt out. Timed challenges can be an accessibility issue for some learners. So if the limit isn’t a legal requirement, consider including a way to turn it off. Only include timers when it improves learning. A little time stress goes a long way. It’s best to save this feature for instances where meeting a time limit connects strongly to learning goals. Don’t make it too hard. Ensure the limits you do use are realistic and achievable. If it’s too hard to meet the requirements, your time limit could cause learners to tune out instead of engage. Make it easy and worthwhile to replay Part of what makes branching scenarios so powerful for learning is the ability to replay the experience to see how different choices would have played out. Like having your own time machine, you can rewind and see what would have happened if you’d done things differently. It’s fun from a curiosity perspective, but this functionality also provides a fantastic opportunity for people to learn from their mistakes and try again. Many video games these days play with the idea of story branching and replays, but unfortunately not all of them make it enjoyable. The ones that get this right tend to have two things in common: they’re easy to replay and the story branches are different enough that going through the scenario again feels worth the effort. Overboard, a mystery in which you’re a murderer trying to cover your trail, is a solid example of this. Content is easy to skip, so you can zoom through sections you’ve already seen. The game also highlights past choices, making it easy to know what options you haven’t tried out yet. Then, at the end of each playthrough, it shares hints about new things to try next time around. And because the story goes in so many different directions depending on your choices, it’s not only effortless to replay—it’s enjoyable too. These approaches are easy to replicate in e-learning scenarios. You can encourage multiple playthroughs by making your story choices and paths feel meaningfully different from each other. Not locking down the navigation makes repeated content quick to skim through. Clearly identifying past choices and offering replay hints can make it easier for learners to find new story branches. And adding a Replay button to the final screen encourages learners to give it another try. Wrap-Up It’s clear that making a compelling branching scenario is about more than making sure each of your slides redirects the learner to the right place—it’s also about connecting your story choices in ways that feel realistic and provoke deep thought. By being thoughtful about how you motivate and encourage learners, removing frustrating barriers, and making your content both realistic and intriguing, you can design scenarios that take full advantage of everything this format has to offer. Want to learn more about creating e-learning scenarios that make an impact? Check out these articles: 6 Things Video Games Can Teach You About Writing Engaging Scenarios 7 Tips for Writing Effective E-Learning Scenarios 3 Different Types of Scenarios You Can Design How to Easily Create Branching Scenarios in Rise 360 Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. And if you have any of your own tips for crafting effective branched scenario choices, be sure to share them in the comments.
