This project, designed to familiarize International Studies students with situations they may encounter while traveling abroad, was developed in Storyline 2.0.
In order to provide the best learning experience possible, the design team (composed of International Studies faculty lead by Dr. Françoise Vionette-Bracher) required the module to be narrated in French. This proved unexpectedly challenging.
Automated screen readers, which are often used similar projects, were not acceptable as students were not native French speakers. By default most screen readers read the content too quickly for students to understand. Additionally the screen readers often mispronounced words or used incorrect inflections. Screen readers also lack personality, and we felt authentic French voices added to the project’s je ne sais quoi.
After the script was finalized, Dr. Françoise Vionette-Bracher recorded the audio while visiting France.
I chose to develop the project in Storyline based on success with another project. This module is one of a series of modules, and each module needed to be translated into six different languages (Arabic, French, German, Italian, Chinese and Japanese). I had recently developed a beta version of a Storyline file that could import data from an Excel spreadsheet, and adapting this technique would save us a considerable amount of time..
Storyline is a great product in many ways, but their ADA support continues to be disappointing. Deciding to use authentic French voices brought many of the program’s shortcomings to light. For example, Storyline doesn’t have a way to easily play a sound when an object is selected via a keyboard. In fact, Storyline doesn’t have any method to communicate with a selected object! (These limitations are a big part of why my department switched to Lectora.)
The only alternative is for developers have to write triggers that count the number of keystrokes, and play specific sounds when the keystroke = x. For example, if Mary pressed TAB four times she must be over the “Welcome” button, so Storyline will play welcome.mp3.
But oh, that dastardly TAB key!! The count isn’t consistent. The first time you loop around, the keystroke value is 4. But the time after it’s a 5. Or a 3. This destroys your tab counts!
There is probably a logic to the counting, but thinking about the triggers for this made my head hurt. We decided to use the right arrow key instead of TAB. I’m not totally happy with the decision, but it works better than anything else we tested.