02/27/2019
Wrap Your Arms Around Storyline
I'm often asked by those 'new' or 'fairly new' to Articulate Storyline: How long does it take to learn this program?
The answer I give is: Not Long, but first, you have to learn the main features in Storyline. "The foundation" if you will. Here are the five things that you need to "Wrap Your Arms Around" early on. Not necessarily all in this order.
First, of course, the UI, that's not going to take too long to familiarize yourself with. The interface is not an overwhelming one and pretty minimalist. It looks and feels a lot like PowerPoint - this is NOT a bad thing at all.
Second, 'States'. These are more important than they first seem. They are not just for changes in appearance when you hover, press down, visit, etc... They can be added to almost any object in a slide and can be used with triggers and conditions.
Third, 'Layers'. That's where you will be mostly storing content presented to learners at different times while keeping them on the same slide. Pretty impressive feature.
Fourth, Triggers. This is how you make things happen. 'Events' that trigger 'Action' really. Without triggers, not much can happen in a course. Add conditions to those triggers and you got some serious interactivity and learner journey logic. You don't have to be a programmer, all the programming will be taking care of for you behind friendly wizards. You need to think a bit like a programmer though as you add conditions.
Fifth, Variables. You are going to need to store values here and there. Those values generally live in buckets (a.k.a, variables). You will reference variables and show the values stored in them. You will also frequently use those values as conditions in your triggers.
Understand and learn how to use the stuff above and you are on your way.
