Adobe Captivate 2019 is a game changer for those of us who do a lot of video in our elearning courses. I have been using video extensively since 2011 for role play, content presentation and questions based on video content presented.

The simplified interactive video work flow using overlay slides and bookmarks, gives you the ability to enhance the video presented with additional content and question slides.

With the new approach to interactive video in Captivate 2019, how I work with video has changed dramatically.

Here’s how it used to work.

The original video workflow was to add object video and rely on the learner to use the video controls to start and stop the video content. There really was no way to stop video playback to introduce additional slide content or question slides. This was generally done after the video was viewed.

The workflow changed with slide video and the edit video timing tool. You could place a video on a slide and use the edit video timing tool to break the video content into clips on different slides. You could then add content slides and questions slides in between the video segment slides. On failure last attempt in question slides you could send the learner back to video segment slides for remediation using jump to slide or go back to a frame on a given slide with advanced actions. This was time consuming and required extensive knowledge of advanced actions and micro navigation based on frame count. And the actual video play back suffered because of the load time on each slide, with the loading spinner, breaking the continuity of the presentation.

Now with Captivate 2019.

The new work flow for interactive video in Captivate 2019 changes all that by placing a video on a single slide.
Using overlay markers along the slide timeline / video to display pop up content and question slides on top of the paused video. You can change the opacity of the slide to create an interesting visual effect. Remediation is much easier by using the failure – last attempt in a question slide to jump to a labelled bookmark on the slide / video timeline (reminds me of the frame label concept in Animate / Flash.)

The benefit to the learner — a much cleaner user experience and fluid presentation of the video with pop up content slides adding additional information and questions to engage the learner on the content presented.

If you have already tried interactive video, you may be getting the positive feedback that I have received with a new course just developed. This feature has had immediate impact on course presentation.