Prototype Excel
Check out the blogs I wrote about using the QSPs, your project demonstrates the same issues I described.
If this is a non-responsive project, publish as rescalable HTML.
From pedagogical viewpoint: give more control to the learner. let them take decisions to skip things, to take a different way through the lesson. Do not impose a linear sequence. That will make the playbar totally superfluous. It is rather easy to add a custom buttons to mute the audio, to show/hide a TOC etc.
Since you plan to have several modules, do not forget to create a solid theme: font and color choice, master slides object styles and skin. For free navigation choosing a TOC in overlay is a better choice than he playbar.
Greg, playbar is needed to start the project since it is paused On Enter of the first slide. I didn’t dare to write a lot more… Project is based on a QSP, and hasn’t taken out what needs to be done when you add audio. Blogged about it:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/tips-adding-audio-to-qsp-slides-ready-to-go-slides
That is the reason for the Continue problem…
If the pause is removed as was suggested – the playbar would not be needed. You and I agree on that. No additional pause is necessary.
Yeah – I recognized it as a prefab (which I don’t use) but mentioned it from the user perspective so that it could be addressed.
Naturally – you can expect a wide range of viewpoints on such things. Take these opinions as only that. Ultimately, you need to consider your own target audience.
A few thoughts from my angle…
- Narration – not a fan of text to speech. As a learner, I tune out real fast when the robots and their lack of enthusiasm start talking to me. I think it is important to maintain a human element in eLearning whenever possible. Maybe take time to record yourself.
- Narration – I would suggest an ‘option’ to enable/disable the narration. Like Lieve, I appreciate narration, but in the case of robot speech – I would rather not be forced to listen to it and would just as soon read for myself. Also on subsequent visits, a learner may not want to listen again. That would go for human speech as well.
- Navigation – I think you could remove the playbar since you have your own navigation built-in. Agree with Lieve, that a pause of sorts is not needed. The learner has already clicked enough. I clicked the play button in this thread, the play button forced upon us, the play button on the play bar, and finally the begin button on your first slide.
- Navigation – I would consider finding a consistent placement and look to your navigation. There was a lot of different button placements, sizes, and colors. It took me a while to notice the ‘Next’ button on the second to last slide. It sort of blended in with surroundings.
- Related to both narration and navigation – at the end when I click on continue… That is what I expect to happen. Instead I was forced to listen to the robot. Clicking the continue button again did not help.
- I appreciate the inclusion of interaction from the learner to click through the steps of the process. I think this is where you can get Captivate to truly shine.
Hi Greg,
Thank you for taking the time to provide all of that feedback I appreciate it. I need to update this post with more information on the project. I completely agree about text-to-speech. In cases like this as a prototype, I like to use it to get a feel for the flow of narration before actually using voice talent to record. I think the option to toggle narration on or off is a great suggestion.
With Navigation, I haven’t decided on how I would like the module to work yet. No decisions have been made on the style of buttons, or placement, or yes/no on the navigation bar. So your feedback is helpful.
I will have to work on the last slide with the extra narration. It might be something I take out altogether when adding voice narration.
Since you explicitly asked for feedback, was ready to watch your project. However, after clicking the Play arrow, screen remains white. That is not very encouraging to the learner. I suspect that you have set the On Enter Slide event to trigger a Pause. Please take it out. Learner expects the course to start immediately. Now he has to click twice: on the big play arrow because AutoPlay is disabled, then find the Play button on the toolbar to use that as well. Hope you understand what I mean?
Appreciate a lot the presence of narration. Audio is clear, no background noise. Quality of audio is even more important than quality of graphics.
You do have some expand icons appearing for text, which is strange because there seems to be enough space for the text. Did you develop this as a non-responsive or a Fluid Boxes project?
If you like more feedback, le me know. But I fear to add to much tips, have been insulted so many times…
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