Captivate v. Storyline

#UnpopularPosition post 186

I hate working in #Articulate #Storyline with a passion. I loathe #Rise because it is so restrictive and promotes using what I consider to be gimmicks as "interactive-ness" in design. I hate how expensive it is and how it has to be paid in one big payment.

I use #Adobe #Captivate but guess what - I hate working in this too. Captivate Classic is the only program left that is equal to Storyline for allowing for custom, complex eLearning design (as far as I have found). I hate Captivate 12/ New Captivate because it is only an Adobe version of Rise.

Here's the thing, I can use either as my clients need, based on what I want to accomplish, or based on the limitations that I am willing to suffer because they might not matter for the project. I am more productive in Captivate (once the media import nightmare is over), so I use it more. But all of this comes down to preference. I prefer Chevy over Ford and Pepsi over Coke. If I have to rent a Ford, I do and I get to where I am going just fine. If I can't get a Black Pepsi, a Coke Zero will suffice.

I can build complex, beautiful training in either. I can build identical templates with identical functionality in both. The tool doesn't matter - it's the skill and understanding of learning and intentional interaction that does. Both will get the job done.

But there are some clear differences. With Storyline, things randomly move between slides and with copy/pasting. I am a pixel fanatic - I want EVERYTHING that should be in one place to BE in that one place. I spend a good two-thirds of my time fixing things that should just work. I can tell whether I can trust an ID by the end result they produce. If your headers don't align from slide to slide, you're missing attention to detail and if they are using a standard template and buttons, I am just disappointed.

Captivate Classic will crap out after I import my third SVG. In order to build custom buttons, I am restarting Captivate Classic every five minutes. Exceptionally frustrating. The upside - I don't have to inspect every object for where they are. Captivate Classic crashes even without importing SVGs - like a curbside purchased hamster, it just...dies. Eventually, things just stop working. I save, restart the software, and start where I left off. It is exceedingly frustrating, but not as frustrating as having to move 100 objects, pixel by pixel, when I add or move a slide as I often do in Storyline.

I LOVE the ability to set triggers to time in Storyline. I can do it as a trigger command or using bookmarks and I use them a lot. Captivate Classic doesn't do this and it is infuriating. New Captivate does, but I don't use New Captivate because I want custom design that is more than changing colors and fonts.

I LOVE that I can build a custom navigation bar and custom menu ONCE in Captivate and not have to have 1,000 unique triggers and variables with hundreds of unique names - Next_Button_243 attached to variable visitedslide_28. Captivate allows you to set things to be present on every slide - build once, see it everywhere. It also makes my courses A LOT smaller because I am not having to duplicate the navigation graphics repeatedly. For those clients that insist that the training MUST be one four hour course, the Storyline file is brutally big. Captivate still requires I have custom variables, triggers, and names for some of my custom functionality, but the number and volume are cut down exponentially.

Both Captivate and Storyline are clunky, unintuitive, and look like they haven't moved beyond PowerPoint 2000 (even PowerPoint doesn't look like it has moved beyond PowerPoint 2000). Both companies would rather save money by adding code and buttons to their antiquated, designed-by-programmers-high-on-LSD-who-have-never-used-the-software, than actually take all of the graphic capabilities that exist in Adobe Illustrator, Premiere, and Photoshop (even Adobe isn't doing this) and build a robust, intuitive program from scratch. Why? Because you are still paying for these things and their is no incentive to make people happy who have little choice in the industry.

Captivate costs $32 a month with a yearly contract and you get both Captivates. While New Captivate and Rise have their place, too many people use them as a cheat code for producing trash in an eLearning suit, so this benefit isn't really an incentive for me. Both Captivates also work on both Apple and Windows machines.

Storyline requires $1,200 up front for a one year subscription. You get Storyline and Rise and some other tools I have never used (except Review, I do use this occasionally). For a lot of people, this is difficult and oppressive. It is hard to learn a new program when you don't have access to it. And, I am in the camp that using multiple emails to use the 30-day trial is unethical. Storyline ONLY works on a Windows machine, so I have both an Apple and a Razor PC sitting next to each other to do one job. Just in case you were wondering, Storyline crashes too. No software is immune to crashing, so save often.

I recommend new eLearning Developers dash their brains out learning eLearning design and development on Captivate because it is an inexpensive way to learn an authoring tool that is within the same paradigm as Storyline. Unless you attend someone's academy or school and they assign you a license, this is the cheapest and "easiest" thing to do. The learning curve between the two is minimal. The biggest hurdle is finding where some things are and figuring out the scripting for triggers.

There are a lot of other authoring tools and I have little experience with them. I don't have the money to purchase them to try them out and most are restrictive in what I can do to give them a thorough work through. I discussed a couple of years ago doing a cage match review of authoring tools but was quickly stymied by their fear of competition - too many payment gateways to do a real robust evaluation. Some I was never able to access because of the “talk to a salesman” wall. I hate that. (Docebo, Absorb, I am looking at you.)

Essentially, all tools have weaknesses and strengths, there is no One Tool to Rule Them All. There could be, but it would take a lot of investment - and institutional will - to do so. I can already see the tool that would make us all sing praises, but until I hit the lottery, here we are, doing the best we can for what we have available.

On a side note – if you want to build one and are stupid rich, hit me up, I got a plan…

#eLearningDesign #InstructionalDesign #eLearningDevelopment #AuthoringTools