What advice would you give to a new practitioner as to where to spend the bulk of their learning time, captivate or articulate based upon usage numbers in the market space?
Being new to Instructional Design, I’ve seen various opinions on the pros and cons of captivate vs articulate. What advice would you give to a new practitioner as to where to spend the bulk of their learning time, captivate or articulate based upon usage numbers in the market space? Thanks!
I appreciate your question….from someone trying to transition from instruction to Instructional Design,
I’m going to bet you will get two different straightforward answers if you posted this same question in the Articulate and Adobe forums. There are acolytes of each.
Being someone who uses both, I can simply say there are differences in each piece of software. Personally, I like both, and the more applications you can use, the better they will serve you. Can you use just one? Sure. It that limiting in what you can do? Maybe. Is one better than the other? That is a matter of preference, in my opinion.
Generally, from what I have heard from other IDs who have used both, the learning curve with Articulate is quicker. But quicker doesn’t necessarily mean better. There is a lot to learn with both.
Typically an organization will make that decision for you and you will have to learn whatever they choose. I have worked with different organizations over the past few years who have used other applications as well.
I guess what I can say is pick one to start, whichever fits your needs, price range, and skill set and start there. Nothing says you can’t expand and try another. Make use of trials (some are longer than others) and just get into it. Learn as much as you can (there is plenty online for free). And get on the forums and read through others questions.
That is my couple of pennies on this topic. Hopefully somewhat helpful.
I agree with Paul. However, your courseware editing tool has to be friendly with your LMS or you’ll have a huge headache on your hands. Captivate and Articulate fabricate HTML differently. Be sure to test it with your LMS before committing. The LMS system that we have has a lot of problems with Captivate’s code, whereas Articulate works flawlessly. But, if your using Adobe’s LMS product (Adobe Learning Manager), Captivate is probably what you’ll want to use (IMO).
On another note, we’ve been terribly disappointed with Adobe’s decision to drop support for 360 view editing in PhotoShop. While the feature is still there, it’s very clunky since support ended. We were stunned since one of Adobe Captivate’s powerful tools IS it’s 360 view feature. While Articulate also offers 360 view, it lacks in a few features like how markers are treated – it’s not as good as Captivate (IMO).
Well anyway, I had to drop PhotoShop and use Affinity to do my 360 editing for Captivate (frustrating). This decision on Adobe’s part to drop such an important editing feature in PS, along with Captivate still being 2019 and all the vaporware marketing for the past 3 years on an upcoming new version, makes me wonder what’s going on at Adobe. Maybe Adobe has a plan for a complete overhaul of everything and that’s why some of these problems? I don’t know – perhaps someone here in the forum has an insight on what’s going on.
I can tell you that I have never felt limited by Adobe Captivate. I have been given design and development challenges over the years, and I have always found a way to create the interactions my stakeholders want using Adobe Captivate. When I read people complaining about the complexity of Adobe Captivate over other products like Articulate, I suspect that they haven’t been adequately trained in how to use Adobe Captivate.
My advice is to pick an affordable authoring tool but also budget for a proper training course. The Adobe Certified Professional: Adobe Captivate certification program would be a great choice. You can learn more about it here: https://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/certificate.html
Additionally, there is an upcoming event where you can get this certification and a whole lot more. Check out the Adobe Learning Summit being held at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, NV. I will be there conducting a session on creating scenario-based eLearning, and there is a host of other sessions you can attend over the three days in October.
Wish I could attend.
I love your training videos Paul. Thank you.
Not a question which can be answered by another user, since we don’t have access to that type of data.
This is the forum where Captivate has an important status, if you post the same question on the Articulate forum you’ll get a different answer. Although I am a big fan of Captivate I wouldn’t dare to give a recommendation, because I don’t have any idea about your previous acquired skills.
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