Storyline’s built-in graded questions have everything you need for most knowledge-based quizzes, from True/False questions to Multiple Choice and Matching. Freeform questions give you even greater freedom to check for understanding using images and other objects on your slides. Sometimes, though, it seems that none of the graded or freeform options really serve your purpose. Fortunately, with a little creativity and some help from triggers and states, you can go far beyond the obvious uses for freeform questions.

Hopefully, you’re already familiar with Storyline and have experience using graded questions, freeform interactions, triggers, and states. If not, that’s okay; the links above will take you to some excellent articles written by the amazing experts at Articulate with all the information you need on these features. Still, if you’ve never worked with these features in Storyline before, I recommend you practice with them before attempting the techniques I describe below.

It is important to acknowledge that the learning objectives should always drive the functionality of a course, not the other way around. If all you need is a multiple choice question, then use a multiple choice question. But when you need to assess knowledge or skill that can’t be tested with the standard graded or freeform question types, the techniques described below can open a whole new set of possibilities. In this post, I will offer solutions to three unique challenges:

• Two-part question
• Alternate input source
• More than one right way

Two-Part Question

All graded and freeform questions limit you to a single question on a slide. Although you certainly shouldn’t aim to stump the learner or make your quiz unnecessarily difficult, there are times when it is useful to ask a question that has more than one part. As an example, in a sample course I created on how to play a board game called Ticket to Ride, I included a question about how many of each type of card to deal to each player during setup.

Creating the Interaction

Looking at this slide, you might think I used a standard Numeric graded question. But a Numeric question can only evaluate one numeric entry field, and this slide has two of them. To make this question work, I used a Pick Many freeform question using the following steps.

1. Insert three shapes—two smiley faces and a no symbol—entirely outside of the visible area of the slide. You don’t have to use these exact shapes, but I find that using smiley faces and no symbols helps me distinguish between correct and incorrect choices. It’s a good idea to name the shapes in the Timeline before proceeding.

1. Convert the slide to a freeform interaction.
2. Switch to Form View. Select all three shapes as answer choices, and designate the smiley faces as correct choices. Enter Correct and Incorrect feedback, point values, and any other question options as desired.

Adding the Triggers

We’ve laid the foundation, but as it stands, your learners will enter numbers in the numeric entry fields that won’t be evaluated, and there is no way for them to interact with the shapes that form the basis of the freeform question. The key to making the magic happen with this type of interaction is to use triggers to make learners’ numerical responses change the states of the shapes.

1. Set the Initial State of the no symbol to Selected.
2. Create a trigger to change the state of the first smiley face to Selected when first numeric entry variable changes. Add a condition to this trigger so that it only happens if the value of the variable is the correct value for this part of the question.
3. Create a trigger to change the state of the second smiley face to Selected when the second numeric entry variable changes. Add a condition to this trigger so that it only happens if the value of the variable is the correct value for this part of the question.
4. Create a trigger to change the state of the no symbol to Normal when the state of at least one of the smiley faces is Selected.

The example below shows all of these triggers. Note that I have named the variables and shapes, which makes it much easier to create the triggers correctly and to see how the triggers work once they are created.

In this example, I also added a trigger to submit the interaction when the learner presses the Enter key if the variable TrainCarCards does not equal 0. (I could have specified that neither the DestinationTicketCards nor TrainCarCards variables should equal 0, but this seemed unnecessary, since it would be highly unlikely for a learner to answer only the second part of the question before trying to submit the answer.) This trigger allows the learner to use the Enter key to submit the interaction, but it is an optional addition, since the learner can always use the Submit button.

Putting it all together, when the learner enters numbers in the numeric entry fields, the variables for the fields are set to the values the learner enters. If the learner enters the correct answers, the smiley faces get selected and the no symbol changes to a Normal state. When the learner clicks the Submit button or hits the Enter key, the interaction is submitted.

Pro Tips

For this example, I used a Pick Many interaction. Could you simplify it by using a Pick One interaction with just one smiley face? Sure. But using a Pick Many interaction gives you better data. If you allow learners to print the results of their quiz, or if you pull a SCORM report from your LMS, the output will specify which part(s) of the question the learner answered correctly and incorrectly. For the same reason, it is important to name each smiley face shape so the information is available for Print Results and LMS reporting.

Alternate Input Source

You can create a basic graded question in Storyline very quickly and easily. If you have the time, though, you can use freeform interactions to create more visually appealing and engaging versions of the same questions. For example, you could use a Pick One interaction instead of a Multiple Choice question or a Pick Many interaction instead of a Multiple Response question, substituting pictures or other visual objects for the simple text in the basic questions. While this type of substitution may not be technically necessary, anything you can do to make your course more engaging makes it that much more likely that learners will complete the course, remember the information later, and even recommend the course to others.

In the same sample course described earlier, I included an example of an engaging makeover for a basic Numeric question. Here, instead of typing a number in a numeric entry field, the learner turns a dial to select a number.

Creating the Interaction

1. Insert a graded question slide and select Numeric question.
2. In the Form View, enter your question, correct answer, feedback, and other relevant details.

1. Switch to Slide View. Move the numeric entry field outside of the visible slide area (see above).

Adding the Visual Elements

For this interaction, you don’t actually need the boxes with the numerals or the train cars. These objects provide a visual indicator of the number currently selected by the dial. You could instead place the numeric entry field on the slide in order to display the selected number. Follow these steps to add the visual elements shown above:

1. Insert a dial on the slide and format the dial as desired.
2. In the Dial Tools Design tab of the ribbon, set the properties of the dial. You may wish to select the Numeric Entry variable as the variable for the dial. That way, you don’t have to create a trigger to update the numeric entry variable. Also, make sure the Start Value, End Value, and Step Value make it possible to select the correct value for the question.

1. Add text boxes (or shapes) for each of the numbers (0-5). Format the text boxes, enter the numbers, and position the text boxes as desired. In this example, I have positioned them around the dial so that the pointer on the dial points to the selected number. Alternatively, you could position them in a row and use states to indicated the selected number. For this example, I made the dial and the numbers fairly large for ease of use on a mobile device.
2. Add the pictures of the train cars (or whatever other object you need represented on your slide) and position them as desired.

Adding the Triggers

1. If you selected the Numeric Entry variable for the dial, then the interaction will function properly without any triggers. As the learner turns the dial, the numeric entry value will change. When the learner clicks the Submit button, that value will be evaluated. If you kept the dial variable attached to the dial, then you’ll need a trigger to adjust the value of the numeric entry variable to match the value of the dial variable whenever the dial variable changes. The remaining triggers described below are needed only to make the visual elements work correctly.

Putting it all together, here’s what it looks like when the learner turns the dial:

More than One Right Way

Sometimes, a question has more than one right answer, or more than one way exists to complete a task. Multiple Response and Pick Many questions require the learner to select all correct answers; none of the graded or freeform questions give the learner credit for selecting any correct answer. This is particularly troublesome for software simulations, because many software programs offer multiple ways to perform various functions. Likewise, you may need a learner to perform a task involving several steps that can be completed in any order. In these situations, the linear simulations generated from screen recordings are of limited value.

As an example, I created a software simulation in which the same icon appears in two places on the screen. You could get around this problem by starting from a different place (in this example, a different tab in the ribbon), but is that really how all of your learners would use the program?

The First Interaction

Creating a simulation like this actually requires several interactions. To create this simulation, I recorded my screen using Storyline while I completed the task using one of these icons, clicked Undo, and then completed the task again using the other icon. Storyline created a freeform Hotspot interaction for the first step. That was my starting point.

I added two additional hotspots and a smiley face (see below). Then I removed the freeform interaction. Next, I converted the slide to freeform again, but this time, I selected a Pick One interaction.

Notice that the smiley face is outside the viewable area of the slide. Also, I should point out that the large hotspot covering the entire slide is not strictly necessary. You could instead use a trigger for when the learner clicks outside the other two hotspots, but if you do that, then clicking anything in the Player (the Menu or the Resources tab, for example) will be interpreted as an incorrect response. Also, having the additional hotspot gives you an incorrect object to include in your answer choices and makes it easier to submit the response on an incorrect click. If you do include a hotspot covering the entire slide, make sure you move it backward so that the “correct” hotspots are in front of it.

Having converted the slide to a Pick One interaction, I switched to the Form View. I designated the smiley face as the correct answer choice and the large hotspot as the incorrect answer choice. Then I entered feedback responses and point values.

I then returned to the Slide View and added several triggers:

• I created triggers to change the state of the smiley face to Selected when the learner clicks either of the two “correct” hotspots.
• I created triggers to submit the interaction when the user clicks any hotspot.
• I created a True/False variable (“Toolbar”) and a trigger to set that variable to True when the user clicks the hotspot covering the icon in the Quick Access Toolbar. This will become important later.

As a result of these triggers, when the learner clicks either of the hotspots covering the Merge Shapes icon, the smiley face changes to a state of Selected and the interaction is submitted. The screen recording plays, and when it completes, the Correct layer is shown. When the user clicks anywhere else, the interaction is submitted without selecting the smiley face. The Try Again or Incorrect layers are shown, as appropriate.

I generally avoid Correct layers in software simulations, because they take learners out of the flow of the simulation. In this case, however, the inclusion of a Correct layer lets me branch the simulation according to which icon the learner clicked. I removed all objects from this Correct layer and shortened the timeline to 0.25 seconds. I then added triggers to jump to different slides when the timeline begins on this layer, depending on the value of the Toolbar variable.

The Next Interactions

The next part of the simulation is quite ordinary. Regardless of which icon the learner clicks in the first step, a drop-down menu opens in the second step. However, the menu can open in different places, depending on where the learner clicks. Therefore, two different slides are required for the second step, and the triggers on the Correct layer of the first slide branch to the second or third slide, as appropriate. These two slides are just basic Hotspot interactions.

The important thing about these slides is that you cannot include them in the scoring for a Results slide. Since the learner is only going to visit one of these slides, if they are both worth points, then the learner is guaranteed to miss out on the points for at least one of the slides. Of course, selecting the correct option on either of these slides is part of the quiz, so you’ll want to attach points somehow. We’ll accomplish that with more branching and the creative use of a Pick One interaction on the next slide. The Correct layers on these two slides should branch to the fourth slide; the Incorrect layers should skip the fourth slide.

The Last Interaction

You can use this technique whenever a learner can choose when or how to do something. In the current example, the learner can choose either of two different methods of completing a task. To make that possible, it helps to make a mental shift from awarding points when the learner does something (e.g., clicks a particular spot) to awarding points when the learner achieves something (e.g., completes a task, reaches a particular screen etc.).

In this case, when the learner clicks the correct choice on either of the two previous slides, the learner will be routed to this slide. If the learner clicks anywhere else, the learner will be routed somewhere else. Therefore, we need to award points when the learner reaches this slide. To do that, I have inserted (you guessed it) a smiley face outside of the visible area of the slide.

From there, I converted the slide to a freeform Pick One interaction and designated the smiley face as the correct answer choice. Next, I added a trigger to change the state of the smiley face to Selected when the timeline starts on the slide. I then added a trigger to play the screen recording action when the timeline starts, in order to show the effect of clicking the right place in either of the previous two slides. Finally, I added a trigger to submit the interaction when the screen recording completes. The learner doesn’t have to click or interact with this slide at all; from the learner’s perspective, this slide appears to be part of the previous slide.

Limitless Possibilities

Undoubtedly, the graded and freeform questions in Storyline were each designed to be used in a particular way. Most of the time, the traditional ways of using these interactions will meet the needs of your courses, but sometimes—such as for two-part questions, when you want to use an alternate source of input, or when more than one right way exists to perform a task—the traditional interactions don’t get the job done. But with a little creativity, you can use triggers and states to make these interactions work in ways the designers probably never imagined. I’ve shown three creative uses of these interactions. What are some creative ways you’ve used triggers and states to boost your interactions?