How Can I Ensure Content is Selected in Order?

During Storyline training, we learn how to customize a course to ensure that learners view all the content on each slide. Depending on the situation and the type of content, there are a variety of strategies that can be used. One question that is often raised is, “How do I ensure my learners view all of the interactive content on a slide before moving on?” That’s a pretty popular question and David Anderson does a great job explaining how to do that here.

However, sometimes the request is more specific. “How can I make sure that the student is selecting all of the interactive content in the proper order?” For those of you teaching processes or steps for an exercise, the order in which items are selected becomes paramount.

Here is one way you might approach this using a simple tabs interaction that takes the learner though seven steps, each triggered to show a corresponding layer.

Step 1

Create a Disabled state for each step. To help the learner know which object should be clicked next, configure the Disabled state to look different than the Normal state.

Step 2

Set the Initial state for Step 1 to Normal. The remaining steps should have their Initial state set to Disabled.

Step 3

Create a trigger to change the state for Step 2 to Normal when Step 1 has been clicked.

Step 4

Create a trigger to change the state for Step 3 to Normal when Step 2 has been clicked.

Optional: Create another trigger to change the state of Step 1 to Disabled thus allowing only one object on the slide to be clickable at a time.

Repeat Step 4 for the remaining Steps 3-7. Once the learner has reached Step 7, you could allow the learner to go through the steps again by changing the state of Step 1 to Normal. If you do so, be sure to add a trigger to change the state for Step 7 to Disabled.

That’s it! Download our example at this link.

Summary

A key characteristic of Storyline is its flexibility. There are other methods that could be used to ensure that your learner views interactive content on your slide in the correct order. However, this simple approach can be used with a variety of interactions and it provides a consistent strategy for requiring learners going through steps in a process in the sequence that you want them to.

Leave a comment or let us know if you have any questions!

~ Shane

 

Update: Please note that the interface of the faster new trigger workflow (in Storyline 360 update 3.33.20625.0 or later) will appear slightly different! While the process is the same, this article uses screen captures from the classic trigger workflow.