A brief ‘first impression’ testimonial on Adobe Captivate by a Ui/UX Designer, taking their first steps in Adobe Captivate and the eLearning world.
I don’t have a background in teaching or education (unlike many other participants in this community), but instead have many years of experience working as a designer for advertising agencies and publishers. Most recently I was involved in crafting a interface (UI) for the new eLearning hub of a large Australian university. This project sparked my interested in eLearning design and I decided to take a closer look at Adobe Captivate. Here is my first impression of Adobe Captivate:
User Interface
Being already very familiar with the software of the Adobe Creative Cloud – particularly InDesign, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator After Effects, Premiere Pro – I was surprised that the user interface seemed to be more closely related to some of the Microsoft applications than other Adobe software. Maybe this is because many educators are more likely to have used Microsoft Word or PowerPoint than Adobe InDesign or Photoshop? Nevertheless the interface seemed to be easy to grasp and necessary tools and commands were easy enough to locate.
Pricing
Even though it would have been great to have Captivate automatically included in ones Creative Cloud subscription, I believe the monthly subscription price is reasonable enough – especially compared to some of Adobe’s main competitors in the eLearning space…
Multi-Platform
What I believe is great about Adobe Captivate is that it’s available for both Windows and Macintosh. Unlike some competitors that are only available for Windows machines, Captivate can be downloaded for MacOS. It makes things so much easier, as I don’t have to either buy a cheap Windows laptop just to run my eLearning software or install a Windows emulator on my Mac.
I’ll post another testimonial as soon as I’ve had more time to explore Adobe Captivate.
Yeah, one does get the distinct impression this piece of software is developed on its own.
Thanks for this first impression. You have to know that the UI of Captivate was much closer to the all-over Adobe look until Captivate 7. It was very much related at that time to the UI of Flash (now labeled Animate CC) than to those I personally prefer (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator) but it was recognizable as Adobe. Even after 4 releases I still dislike the present UI very much. That can also be due to the fact that I never liked MS looks neither, but the two main reasons for me are: lack of customisability and the need for a lot more mouse movements and actions (loss of shortcut keys). I still hope on a return to a UI that is not only meant for newbies, deceivingly simple.
Just one tip: switch to the so-called Expert UI, bu going into Preferences (CTRL-K doesn’t work, you need SHIFT-F8) and check the option ‘”Enable Custom workspaces….’. At least you’ll be able to create workspaces, although the panels cannot be minimized to icons which is a big UX mistake.
Captivate has Rulers and Guides under the View menu, which are very important to me (had to beg for them since CP5, got them on 9.0.1). Indispensable for a designer IMO, but you’ll not see them in the Adobe tutorials.
Do not hesitate to post questions. Some roundtripping between CC and CP works very well (PS is my favourite, was a PS teacher for 20 years).
Thanks for your comment, Lieve! I wasn’t aware that Adobe Captivate previously had a UI that was much closer to the other Adobe programs. And I agree, shortcuts are great and I use them frequently in other Adobe programs. I’ve also noticed that you cant really customise your toolbars and panels which would be – as you point out – great to do. Who knows, maybe Adobe might amend the UI in the future to align with other Adobe software again. With some of the other Adobe software they also seem to frequently change the UI and are trying to simplify it – especially with Adobe XD and such.
Thanks for the tips – I’ll keep them in mind as I’m working with CP!
Oh, and cool you’ve been a PS teacher for such a long time! I currently only use PS for photo editing and retouching, as for web/ui/ux design quite a while ago I’ve moved over to… probably shouldn’t say that in an Adobe forum … Sketch, which works very well for me. Might have to play around with Adobe XD a bit more though, to see where that’s currently at!
You have to switch to Expert UI. I did teach InDesign and Audition as well, but Photoshop was my first ‘love’. I don’t like every change in UI, but at least the general Adobe look and tools are in most big apps. I am still missing the Hand tool and the Pen tool daily in Captivate, but don’t dare to ask for it anymore which I did since 10 years.
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