7 Most Popular Storyline 360 Examples & Downloads of 2023
E-Learning Heroes Community is the perfect place to get inspired by examples from both our amazing community members and our Articulate staff members. Below are the top seven Storyline 360 examples from 2023. 1. Storyline Comics Style Communication: Branched Scenario See how you can use interactive storytelling elements and branching techniques to teach learners the skills they need in this cool example. 2. Power of Self-Motivation Scrolling Experience Check out this completely unique interactive example that engages learners right from the start. 3. Office Safety Training Template Want to teach workplace safety in a memorable and interactive way? Check out this downloadable template to help kickstart your project. 4. Interactive Storytelling Template Learn how to leverage storytelling in Storyline 360 to help your learners apply their skills in a real-life scenario with this inspiring example. 5. Room Exploration Interaction Template Make searching an office, home, warehouse, store, or any other 2D environment feel more cinematic with this downloadable interaction. With the help of hotspots, triggers, and layers, learners can use the on-screen flashlight to help them discover clues. 6. Reset Drag-and-Drop Incorrect Choices Template Ever wanted to reset only the incorrect drag choices in Storyline 360? Use this starter template and supporting video tutorial to learn how to reset your own drag-and-drop interactions. 7. Employee Health and Wellness Check out this stunning example to see some of the immersive and custom learning experiences you can create with Storyline 360. Wrap-Up We hope these examples inspire you as you work on your next e-learning projects! Did we miss any of your favorites? Be sure to let us know in the comments below. You can view more article recaps from 2023 by checking out our latest compilation of articles here: All the Best E-Learning Heroes Content from 2023 in One Place. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.3 Ways to Create Drag-and-Drops with Storyline 360
Are you looking for a way to make e-learning courses more dynamic and engaging? Look no further than drag-and-drop interactions. Drag-and-drop interactions give your learners the opportunity to make decisions and engage with course content, and can be an excellent learning tool when used appropriately. That begs the question, when should drag-and-drops be used? In my experience, they can really come in handy when you want your learners to: Sort correct and incorrect items (view an example) Order the steps in a process (view an example) Match items (view an example) Place items or objects (view an example) Storyline 360 offers a variety of ways to create drag-and-drop interactions. Let’s have a closer look at three easy techniques. Graded Quiz Slides Storyline 360 offers 11 graded question types, two of which are prebuilt drag-and-drop interactions. The nice thing about Storyline’s graded question slides is that they’re superquick and easy to set up since you don’t have to create a single trigger. All you have to do is select the type of drag-and-drop question you want—matching or sequence?—and insert your content. View a Storyline 360 Matching Drag-and-Drop Quiz Slide View a Storyline 360 Sequence Drag-and-Drop Quiz Slide Matching activities are great when you want learners to make a connection between several items, for example an event and the date it occurred. Sequence is great for having learners identify the order of a process or task. Freeform Freeform slides let you convert any regular slide into a graded drag-and-drop quiz slide in a few clicks. Freeform slides are a really powerful tool because they allow you to completely customize every single aspect of your slide and drag-and-drop interaction. Freeform is perfect when you want to create a drag-and-drop that is not a matching or sequence activity, for example, to sort incorrect and correct items or to match non-text items such as shapes or images. Here are some examples of customized drag-and-drop interactions created using Freeform slides: View a Freeform Gamified Drag-and-Drop View a Freeform Placing Drag-and-Drop Activity To create a freeform drag-and-drop interaction, insert a new slide and click the “Convert to Freeform” button on the “Insert” tab of the Storyline 360 ribbon. Select the drag-and-drop option, then click Insert. Storyline will automatically create a graded drag-and-drop quiz slide, and will even add the “Submit” button and the feedback layers. You will be presented with “Form View,” where you can assign your drag items and your drop targets. Storyline 360’s Drag-and-Drop Freeform Form View When you’re in Form View, you’ll notice that there are options available to you in the ribbon. Options available in Drag-and-Drop Freeform Form View A few things you can do here: shuffle the answers, assign a results slide, and assign the number of attempts learners have. Above all, the one key feature you need to know about is the “Drag & Drop Options” button. Drag & Drop Options Knowing about these options can save you a ton of time and headaches. These options give you flexibility when you’re tweaking your drag-and-drop interaction to work just the way you want it. Need your drag items revealed one at a time? No problem! Do you want to allow multiple items onto one drop target? Just check the box. These options will let you customize your drag-and-drop interaction to behave just the way you want. Triggers There’s one more, little-known, way to create a very simple, ungraded drag-and-drop interaction by using a single trigger. You’ll need at least two objects on your slide to make this work. The “When” drop-down menu in the Trigger Wizard offers two options: These Drag Drop Events are available in the Trigger Wizard By using either of these options in a trigger with two objects from your slide, you can create a very simple drag-and-drop interaction. However, you can’t customize that interaction in any way and it can’t be graded. For that reason, it’s typically recommended to use the freeform drag-and-drop interaction, which is superpowerful, graded, and offers many options for customization. In Sum Creating drag-and-drop interactions with Storyline 360 is intuitive and easy, no matter which method you choose. Go ahead, build your own drag-and-drop interaction so you can see for yourself how quick and easy it is. Let me know how it turns out 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. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Rise 360 or Storyline 360: Which One Should You Use for Your Project?
Ever since we launched Rise 360, customers have been asking me the same question: How do I decide whether to use Storyline 360 or Rise 360 for my e-learning project? This is what I usually say: Personally, I find that Rise 360 is perfect for most of my projects. It lets me create beautiful, responsive e-learning courses in a matter of hours. If I need a custom interaction or two, I’ll build them out in Storyline 360 and insert them into my Rise 360 course as blocks. And when I need to be able to customize my entire course down to the last pixel, I use Storyline 360. To help you better understand the kinds of projects that are best suited for each app, I pulled together some examples. Rise 360 Course Examples Rise 360 makes it easy to create lessons by mixing and matching different blocks—or stackable multimedia elements—to create a unique learning experience. Here are some examples of Rise 360 courses to give you an idea of the types of projects you could create in Rise 360: New Employee Orientation New Manager's Toolkit Sales Fundamentals Conflict of Interest Compliance Example Can You Talk Your Way Into Higher Pay? Driving in France What You Need to Know About Multi-Device E-Learning Common Workplace Injuries Training Schedule Template Training Needs Analysis 101 Rise 360 Course Examples with Storyline 360 Blocks If you’re creating a course in Rise 360 and realize that you need to create a custom interaction, no need to start over! Simply create your custom interaction in Storyline 360 and add it to your Rise 360 course as a block. Here are some examples of projects that seamlessly combine Rise 360 and Storyline 360: Space Travel–Themed Interactive Infographic Nursing Module Working Across Cultures How to Create E-Learning The Four Mindsets of Change Your Kidneys at Work The Mars Curiosity Rover Name That Breed If you’re looking for some inspiration for when to use the Storyline 360 block in Rise 360, check out these resources: When to Use the Storyline 360 Block in Rise 360 Three Ideas for Enhancing Rise 360 Courses Using the Storyline 360 Block Here’s How Course Designers Are Using Storyline 360 Blocks in Rise 360 Storyline 360 Course Examples Some projects call for a more tailored look and feel throughout—for example, if you want to immerse learners in a realistic scenario. Others require a lot of custom interactions. For those projects, you'll want to use Storyline 360. Here are some examples of courses where authors have leveraged the features in Storyline 360 to create a fully customized experience: How to Fight a Bear Follow Santa’s Instructions for Packing a Gift Movie Trivia Game Instructional Design Basics Review 101 Software Simulation Customer Service Scenario Multilingual Course with Text to Speech Further Reading Hopefully, these examples give you a clearer picture of the types of courses you can create in both Rise 360 and Storyline 360 so you can more easily decide which to use for your next project. To dig deeper into this topic, check out this article: How Pros Use Rise 360 and Storyline 360. Want to try out Rise 360 and Storyline 360 for yourself, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And if you found this article helpful, subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox.Storyline Step-By-Step Slides: View, Try and Test Mode
As you’ve used Storyline 360, you may have noticed the Record Screen option. It’s perfect for putting together a software tutorial or explainer video quickly. But once you’ve created a recording, did you know that Storyline 360 also has three ways to automatically break that content into easily digestible steps? That’s right—Storyline 360 keeps track of all the different clicks and interactions in your recording. So if you want to transform that video into step-by-step slides, Storyline 360 can do the development work for you. You can then use the results as is or further customize the steps to fit your learners’ needs. In this article, we’ll look at how these different step-by-step modes work and when they’re most helpful for learning. Demonstrate a Process with View Mode If you need to introduce learners to a new tool or process, View Mode is the way to go! With View Mode, your video is split into multiple slides that show each step. The slides automatically animate through your tutorial, like a guided tour. And with the option to add text captions automatically, you can even include on-screen explanations of each step. Since learners are just watching the demonstration, it’s a perfect way to ease them into navigating brand new tools or techniques. Provide Hands-On Practice with Try Mode When you want learners to try out a process in a safe environment, select Try Mode. Storyline 360 automatically adds timed pauses, hotspots, and keyboard shortcuts to make your screen recording interactive. And for more guided help, Storyline 360 can also add small text captions on each screen to provide hints about what to do! Since Try Mode asks learners to do the process themselves, it’s a good fit for when they already have some baseline knowledge—either from past experience or an earlier lesson—and need hands-on practice. And since Try Mode interactions aren’t graded, they’re a stress-free way to learn from mistakes. Assess Learner Skills with Test Mode At first glance, Test Mode looks a lot like Try Mode. But where the latter is all about practice, the former focuses on assessment. In Test Mode, Storyline 360 converts each interactive video slide into a graded question. You can then use the Test Mode options and quiz settings to customize the experience further. For instance, you can set what feedback (if any) to show after a learner responds to the steps, how many attempts they have to get it right, and what counts as a passing score for the overall test. Test Mode is perfect for wrapping up a course and confirming learners can do a process independently. And since the quiz score can be reported to a learning management system (LMS), it’s also a way to mark course completion. Try Out These Modes for Yourself Those short explanations are a great introduction, but do you know the best way to understand these different modes? By getting hands-on experience with them! Want to see these modes in action? Check out this Storyline step-by-step example to see the same content shared in View, Try, and Test Modes. You can also watch the original screen recording they were all created from. Wrap-Up The screen recorder in Storyline 360 makes it easy to provide the help learners need to pick up new or improved software—whether with a video tutorial, a step-by-step breakdown, guided practice, or an interactive assessment. And since there’s no limit to how many times you can use your recording, you can even include more than one mode in your course with minimal additional effort! Interested in discovering more tips for recording your screen with the Articulate 360 apps? Then check out these helpful articles: Follow These 5 Steps to Record Your Screen in Storyline 360 How to Decide Which Articulate 360 App to Use for Screen Recording 5 Tips for Creating Effective Software Simulations with Storyline 360 Want to try something you learned here but don’t have Articulate 360? It takes no time at all to start a free 30-day trial. If you have any questions, share them in the comments below. And be sure to come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.All About Lightboxes in Storyline 360
Whether you’ve designed a website or simply done your fair share of web surfing, you’ve probably run across lightboxes. They’re often used to display content (particularly images or video on photography websites) while dimming out the web page background. The lightbox feature in Storyline 360 works similarly. Triggering content to be displayed in a lightbox allows the slide of your choice to appear in a pop-up window over the current slide, which is dimmed. Here’s an example: Click here to explore the interactive version and here to download the template. A lightbox allows you to show learners additional content without navigating away from the current slide, which could cause them to lose their spot in the course. This can be especially helpful for stuff like bibliographical references or links to external resources. It’s also great for navigation instructions, a table of contents, or any other supporting assets that need to be available throughout the course. Let’s walk through how to add lightboxes to your Storyline 360 course so your learners can start reaping the benefits of this powerful feature. How Do Lightboxes Work in Storyline 360? In Storyline 360, you can trigger any slide (or series of consecutive slides) to open in a lightbox. The size, placement, and appearance of the lightbox is prebuilt for you, to make it super simple. This includes a red X button that closes the lightbox window automatically when learners click. These features make it quick and easy for you to create a consistent user experience. However, the trade-off is that you can’t customize these lightbox settings. If you’re looking for more control over the size, placement, or appearance of your lightbox content, you can always create your own pseudo lightbox effect using slide layers. To read more about how to do this as well as the pros and cons of this approach, check out this forum discussion: Lightbox Change Size? Pro Tip: When designing content for use in a lightbox, keep scale in mind. The scale of objects on your content screens (e.g., text, buttons, images) will be about 75% of the original slide size. Triggering the Lightbox Once you’ve created content slides for your lightbox, what’s next? To get your content into a lightbox, you’ll need to add a trigger. You’ll find the Lightbox Slide option under the action menu in the Trigger Wizard. Once you’ve selected Lightbox Slide, you’ll need to tell Storyline 360 which slide(s) to open. From the Slide drop-down menu, select the slide you want to appear inside your lightbox. If you’d like a series of slides to be lightboxed (e.g., for a media gallery), you’ll find it’s easier to place those slides into their own scene. That way you can simply select the first slide in that scene from the Slide drop-down and check the Navigation Controls box to allow learners to move forward and backward within that scene of lightboxed slides. You can also use your own navigation buttons, but your learners may find the size of Storyline’s default navigation controls a little easier to see and use. Pro Tip: To keep learners from getting confused, be sure to remove any custom on-slide Forward/Backward navigation buttons or arrows from your lightboxed slides if you’ll be using the default player navigation controls. Once you’ve selected the slides you want to appear in the lightbox, it’s time to tell Storyline 360 when to trigger this effect. From the When drop-down menu, simply select the option that fits your needs. For example, when the user clicks. Next, select the associated object. For example, in the screenshot below, the action to open the lightbox should happen on Slide 1.3 when the user clicks on the Previous button. If you’re using the built-in navigation buttons in Storyline 360, you can also trigger the lightbox to open when the user clicks on buttons built into the player, like Next, Previous, or Submit. Lightboxes can also be triggered to open from a slide or slide layer. Finally, you need to decide whether there are any specific conditions or criteria for launching the lightbox. For instance, what if you only want the learner to be able to access the lightbox after they’ve clicked on all the buttons on a slide, like in the example below: You can specify any conditions to be met by adding conditions to the trigger in the Trigger Wizard, as shown above. For more details on trigger conditions, check out this tutorial: Adding Conditions. Adding a Lightbox to the Course Player It’s one thing to make a lightbox available on a single slide, but what if you want lightboxed content to be accessible throughout your course? No problem! Storyline also gives you the ability to add a lightbox to the course player as an additional tab. Here’s how. From the player properties, select the Features tab. Under the Player Tabs section, click Add New (the blank paper icon): In the Trigger Wizard panel, enter a name for your new tab in the name field—for example, “Contact” for a slide with contact information. This name is what learners will see in the player, so be sure to choose something that makes it obvious what kind of information learners will find there. In the action field of the Trigger Wizard panel, select the lightbox trigger and then choose the content slide(s) you’d like to open up. Just like adding a lightbox to a slide, you can specify conditions for triggering this lightbox effect from the course player. When you’ve finished entering the information for your new tab, click OK. In the adjacent Storyline player preview, you should see your newly added tab. To make sure that your lightbox is functioning properly, simply preview your project and click the newly added tab on the course player. Resources Hopefully this comprehensive look at lightboxes has given you some new ideas for using them in your courses. For even more lightbox design inspiration, check out these helpful resources: How Are You Using Lightbox Slides in E-Learning? 3 Subtle Ways to Integrate Navigation Instructions Storyline Template: Lightbox Tabs Storyline Template: Integrated Navigation Instructions What creative uses have you discovered for lightboxes? Leave your ideas in the comments below or share them with the E-Learning Heroes community. Want to try lightboxes out for yourself, but don’t have Storyline 360? Start a free 30-day trial of Articulate 360, 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.Everything You Need to Know About States in Storyline 360
The states feature in Storyline 360 is incredibly powerful. States allow you to alter the appearance of objects based on the learner’s actions. To illustrate this, take a look at the GIF below: See how the formatting of the buttons changes as I hover, and then again when I click on them? And did you notice that once I’ve clicked on the top three buttons, a fourth one appears? These formatting changes are made possible thanks to the states feature in Storyline 360. But this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what’s possible with states. Let’s do a breakdown of this super-powerful feature to help you better understand how you can use states in your courses: Built-In Object States Custom Object States Drag-and-Drop States Character States Built-In Object States When you click on an object, open the States panel and click on the New State icon. You’ll notice that there are already a few built-in states: The great thing about these built-in states is that when you add them to objects in Storyline 360, most of them work automatically—without any triggers. Let’s take a look at how prebuilt states work and how you might want to use them in your courses. Normal This is what your learners see by default if they don’t interact with the object in any way. This state is created automatically when you insert an object. Any formatting that you apply to your object is automatically applied to the Normal state. Here’s a cool pro tip: you can actually add objects to the Normal state instead of adding them to your slide! There are many situations where this technique can be useful. For example, if you’d like to create a custom button by combining several objects, you’ll want to add the secondary objects to the Normal state instead of grouping them, because states can’t be added to a group of objects. To add objects to the Normal state, simply select an object, open the States panel, click on Edit States, select Normal, and insert the objects, as shown in the GIF below: As you can see, adding the icon to the Normal state instead of adding it to the slide itself allows you to interact with both the rectangle and the icon as if they were a single object. From here, you can add whatever other states you’d like! Speaking of, let’s take a look at the next prebuilt state. Hover This is what an object looks like when a learner moves their mouse over it. Adding a Hover state is a great way to signal to learners that an object is clickable. It’s up to you what formatting you apply to an object. Here’s an example of a Hover state that simply changes the fill color to a lighter shade of blue: Down The Down state appears when the learner is actively clicking on an object. This signals to the learner that their action is working. As always, the design of this state is your call. In the example below, the Down state simply changes the fill color to a darker shade of blue: Selected When you’ve added the Selected state to an object, it’ll appear when the learner clicks. If they click on the same object again, it’ll go back to the Normal state (unless they’re part of a Button Set). This state is great for interactions where you want learners to see which objects they’ve selected. Here’s an example of a couple of rectangles to which I’ve added Selected states with glow formatting: If you want to create an interaction where learners are supposed to select a single object from a set of options, you’ll want to use this state in combination with a Button Set, which automatically changes the state of a Selected object to Normal when the learner selects another object in the set, much like how radio buttons work in multiple choice questions. Here’s the same example you see above with a button set applied to the three rectangles: Visited Like the Selected state, the Visited state appears automatically when the learner clicks on an object. However, unlike the Selected state, which turns on and off automatically when learners click on the same object multiple times (unless they’re part of a Button Set), once the Visited state is activated, the only way to turn it off is by adding a trigger. This is because the purpose of the Visited state is to show that an object has been clicked on in the past, not to show that it’s currently selected. The Visited state is super-useful when you create custom menus or click-and-reveal interactions because it allows you to give learners a visual reminder of the buttons they’ve already clicked. Here’s an example of how that works: Disabled The Disabled state allows you to temporarily prevent an object from changing states or activating a trigger when learners interact with it. Unlike the other prebuilt states we’ve seen, you need to add a trigger for this state to work, unless you’ve set it as the initial state for an object. When the Disabled state is activated, nothing will happen when learners try hover, click, or drag that object. The Disabled state is useful in many situations. For example, if you’d like to create a custom menu that requires learners to view the different sections of your course in a certain order rather than allowing them to view the content in the order of their choosing, you can use the Disable state to unlock one button at a time, like in the GIF below: Notice how when I hover over the buttons, nothing happens? The Hover state doesn’t appear and the hand cursor doesn’t appear, making it clear that I can’t click on them. If you’d like to build a menu like this but are short on time, hop on over and download this template. Hidden As you may have guessed, when the Hidden state is activated, the object is invisible. Like the Disabled state, you need to add a trigger to activate this state unless you’ve set it as the initial state for an object. The Hidden state could be useful if you wanted to hide the quiz button until the learner completes all the sections of the course, as shown in the GIF below: Before we move on to Custom Object states, here’s another pro tip for you: if you’re creating states for an image, you can quickly create a series of states for it by bulk-importing image files. Find out how in this tutorial: Inserting Pictures as States. Custom Object States In addition to these prebuilt states, you can create an unlimited number of Custom Object states that can look and work any way you want. Adding a Custom Object state is super-easy! Simply select the object, open the States panel, click Edit States, and type the name of your Custom Object state, as shown in the GIF below: Once you’ve created your Custom Object state, go ahead and format it any way you’d like. Then, add a trigger to that object to show that state whenever you’d like it to appear. There are tons of situations in which it can be useful to create Custom Object states. One example would be to create different versions of the same object that appear as the learner interacts with a slider or a dial, as shown in the GIF below: To create the example above, I inserted a bunch of Custom Object states and changed the height of the rectangles in each one. Check out the screenshot below to get an idea of what my states look like: This is just one example of a situation where you might want to use Custom Object states—there are plenty of others! Let your imagination run wild. Drag-and-Drop States When we were looking at prebuilt states earlier, you may have noticed that at the bottom of that drop-down list there was another category of prebuilt states: the Drag-and-Drop states. As their name suggests, these states were specifically designed to be used with drag-and-drop interactions. They allow you to give the learner visual feedback as they’re interacting with the exercise. There are three Drag-and-Drop states. Let’s take a closer look at each one. Drag Over If you add this state to a draggable object, the learner will see it when an object is dragged over a drop target. If you have multiple drop targets, this state will be applied no matter which one it’s dragged over. Take a look at this GIF to get an idea of what that could look like: Instead of adding this state to a drag item, you could add it to your drop target(s). Here’s what that looks like: No matter which option you choose, the objective is the same: to give the learner a visual cue that they’re dropping the object onto a drop target—without letting them know if their answer is correct or incorrect. Drop Correct and Incorrect States The remaining two states are generally used together. The Drop Correct state is what your learner will see when they drop an object on the correct drop target, and the Drop Incorrect state is what they’ll see if they drop an object on the incorrect drop target. By default, these states won’t appear until the learner clicks on the Submit button, like in the GIF below: This is a great way to let learners know which answers they dragged to the right and wrong spots, instead of simply telling them they didn’t drag them all to the right spot. If you want the Drop Correct or Drop Incorrect state to display right away, simply go to the drag-and-drop options and uncheck the box marked Delay Item Drop States until Interaction Is Submitted, as shown in the GIF below: Once you’ve unchecked that box, your interaction will work as shown below: This option is great for practice exercises, where the score doesn’t matter. Pro tip: Did you notice that in addition to changing the color of the draggable items for the Correct and Incorrect states, I added icons to indicate whether they were correct? It’s a good practice to avoid using color alone to indicate correctness; this enables people who have trouble distinguishing colors or who come from cultures where green and red don’t indicate Correct and Incorrect to be able to understand. Character States Did you know that the illustrated characters in Storyline 360 come with a dozen prebuilt states? Well, now you do! There’s a prebuilt state for each of the 12 facial expressions included with each illustrated character. So if you want your character to suddenly look angry or disappointed, you don’t have to build out those states—they’re already there! All that’s left to do is insert an illustrated character and set up a trigger to change the state. Wrap Up And there you have it—you know everything there is to know about states in Storyline 360! Well, maybe not everything, but pretty close. If you want to dig even deeper, check out these great resources: Adding and Editing States Definition of Built-In States Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox.Make Working with SMEs a Breeze with These 3 Downloads
One of my favorite things about being an e-learning designer is creating courses on a wide variety of topics. I’ve learned so much over the years! When I look back on it, it’s almost like I had to become an expert in every subject in order to create the most effective learning experience. And while some of my knowledge came from my own research, more often than not it was gleaned from the content provided by my project’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Subject Matter Experts play a critical role in course design. They have the knowledge, experience, and insight to help you create the most impactful training. Despite their importance to your projects, working with SMEs can also be challenging. From different perspectives around how content should be presented to old-fashioned beliefs around how people learn, many e-learning pros find themselves in a battle of wills with their SMEs when all they really want is a productive partnership. This problem can be especially vexing when creating custom e-learning in a powerful app like Storyline 360. With so many creative possibilities, there are countless ways to present content. So how do you help your SMEs visualize different treatments and bridge gaps in understanding, all while building positive relationships with your SMEs? Here are three documents I’ve found essential for communicating clearly and aligning expectations from the start. Document 1: Project Kickoff Questions Before meeting with your project’s SMEs, it pays to do a little prep work. If you already have some source content pulled together, study it to get a basic understanding of the material. And if you don’t have content, research the topic or the company to make the most of your time with your SMEs. As you study, prepare a list of questions to help guide the conversation and show the SME how much you value their time. Need to kick-start your thinking? Download and customize this Project Kickoff Questionnaire for your needs. Download With all of your prep work done, you’re ready to set up a meeting with your SME to discuss the project. Make sure to bring your list of questions, and then listen actively and take notes. This is your time to build trust with your SMEs and identify knowledge and performance gaps to determine the right solution. Document 2: Project Plan After you determine the right solution, it’s time to put the details in writing so you’re all on the same page. A project plan can be a great way to align expectations. In the project plan, you can include the project background, course information, deliverables, timelines, and any other important details. Once you’re done preparing the project plan, have the SME review it and confirm its accuracy before moving forward with design. Need help creating a project plan? I’ve got you covered! Download this free project plan template. Download Document 3: Storyboard Now that you and the SME are on the same page, it’s time to start designing the project. If you’re using a slide-based authoring app like Storyline 360, the best way to make sure you have a solid foundation for development is to create a storyboard. A storyboard is the blueprint for a course that outlines the content screen by screen. Storyboards help your SMEs visualize how the content will flow and allows them to make edits before you start development in your authoring app. Note: If you’re using a web-based authoring app like Rise 360, you can skip the storyboarding phase and go straight to development since it’s easy to use and quick to make changes. Need help getting started? Then download and customize this storyboard template with your content. Download What Next? After the storyboard is finalized, you can feel confident knowing you have a solid foundation to start building your course. Taking the time to develop project kickoff questions, create a clear project plan, and storyboard the content before you start developing it in your authoring app will set you, the SME, and the learners up for success. For more ideas on working with SMEs, check out this series on Everything You Need to Know About Working with SMEs. 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.
