Storyline visuals - tips and tricks

One of the main advantages of Storyline modules compared to traditional books and illustrations is the numerous possibilities with which the same content can be presented in a more interesting and entertaining way. These opportunities are not only for making the learning more entertaining, but also for providing support and help learners better understand the main points the course tries to communicate.

This blog post talks about a few easy and a couple of less easy to do tips and tricks that you can use within and with Storyline to create beautiful and engaging courses!

The two main categories will be visuals that you can create without having to use any other tools and a couple of examples for external tools that can be very helpful for your work in Storyline.

For more Storyline and Instructional Design tips and tricks, check out our other blog posts here.

Visuals using built-in Storyline objects

1. Diagrams

Diagrams are often used to represent data in e-learning courses. This after a while can be a bit dry for the learners so it's good to look for opportunities to make these more appealing and interactive. The diagram below is an example of using simple shapes ("pies") and images to create something that's a bit different.

This visual can be further improved by making the ratios at the end of the animation clickable objects so the learners can find more about the different numbers.

2. Using other shapes to present text

A simple method for presenting bullets, items, and data is to use various shapes from the available options in Storyline. Even though the content is the same, we can create something more colourful and also match the presentation to the content in a more efficient and memorable way.

3. Custom menu

A significant visual effect is when the menu is different from the usual: by using simple Storyline shapes and elements, almost endless variations can be built. Creating a custom menu in Storyline is not the easiest, but it's another good example of the powerful effect the built-in shapes can have.

4. Graph + animation

Many tables and graphs may seem boring and repetitive when they're presented in the traditional way. However, if the lines, axes, labels, units of measurement and data line are all animated, the graph can become an interesting and entertaining element, and at the end of the animation the learners will more likely remember more of the content than if they only saw a static element.

Using Non-Storyline Tools:

5. Removing image background

There are plenty of options out there. Some of them more professional, some of them are less. One of the advantages of Remove Background from Image for Free – remove.bg website is that it's free for standard resolution (standard resolution is sufficient 98% of the time). Another advantage of this tool that it's super fast. It doesn't offer as advanced editing options as the Adobe products, but if you need to have an image without its background quickly, Remove.bg is definitely worth having a go. Inserting a cut-out element (human figure, animal, object, tool, etc.) to a slide and changing between different backgrounds and elements can be very useful when you build your e-learning courses using characters or other objects that you want to position more excitingly.

We cut out the background from the selected image (make sure that there is a definite, sharp contour of the shape that we want to keep), then we paste the resulting shape or character in front of any other background.

For example:

Or:

6. Removing video background

There are also many applications for this, but not many are free and relatively easy to use. It can be even more effective than cropped and embedded photos, although, of course, you should not overuse it as it can be distracting if used too many times.

Check out unscreen.com to remove video background.

Here are the birds using a different background:

The task is similar to the one for cropping the image with the difference that here you also have to make sure that no disturbing elements remain on the video that could possibly create issues after cropping the background. For example, here's an elephant with a moving tail that looked weird after removing the background.

Conclusion

While visuals should never override the importance of carefully designed structure, content flow and meeting learning objectives, improving the visual aspects of our e-learning modules can help learners stay more engaged and (hopefully) ultimately learn more from the courses we help to create.

If you are interested in other Storyline tips and tricks or need help with e-learning Instructional Design projects click here to get in touch.