Dusting off the Archives! My First Storyline 360 Project

What was the first project you built in Storyline? How long did it take you? Inspired by a question posed by David Anderson in the eLearning Heroes forum, I’m excited to delve into the archives and unveil one of my earliest Storyline projects from 2014. At least one of the earliest ones I can find the master Storyline file for!

Sometimes, you need to dust off the layers of time to truly appreciate the growth and transformation that occurs along the way.

Anonymous

Digital Magazine Challenge

Creating Digital Magazines for Online Learning #336 challenged Storyline developers to design an interaction using magazines (digital or analog) as the source of inspiration. You didn’t need to build a fully working example, just enough to show what a digital learning magazine might look like in e-learning.

At the time, I had just come back from a photo trip from Eastern Oregon and thought this would be something I could do to incorporate my hobby. Here’s the exciting part!

This sample helped me land one of my very first clients and I continued to work with them for over a decade! You can learn about my elearning freelancing journey here. If you want to see the project I created based on the digital magazine design idea, click here. Let’s move to the first question David asked, “How long did it take me to build it?”

How long did it take me to build it?

At the time, I was still learning what was possible with Storyline and on a steep learning curve. I suspect producing this sample took me 6-8 hours of design/development time. Fortunately, I’ve learned a lot since then, and Storyline 360 has come a long way from Storyline 1! On to the second question posed by David, “What helped me the most to learn Storyline?”

What helped me the most to learn Storyline?

The most helpful approach for me was examining the work of others and reverse-engineering it. This allowed me to grasp the inner mechanics of Storyline 1, leading to valuable insights that greatly improved my learning experience.

It was like solving a puzzle: as I pieced together each component, my understanding of the software deepened. I also utilized the eLearning Heroes Forum to ask questions and take advantage of the resources it provided as I continue to do today.

Enough with the background, let’s see the digital magazine sample I created using Storyline 1.

Digital Snapshots

In the past, the popular slide size was 4:3 (720×540), and the classic player was all the rage! Nowadays, I prefer to use the 16:9 aspect and the modern player for my projects.

Various photography magazines inspired the design of my title screen. I replaced a link to a flash-based video and republished it in Storyline 360 without making any other alterations. Fortunately, the Youtube video was still accessible! You can check out the sample by clicking on the Launch link below. I hope you enjoy it!

Launch