One thing you'll notice when moving your mouse around a software interface is that the software provides all sorts of visual cues. For example, there may be a rollover effect for clickable tabs; or perhaps the icons change colors. Sometimes you’ll get some help text.
This is great for live software, but it’s not always great for software simulations. If you’re testing someone on a sequence of steps you don’t want the screen to give away where to click. But when you create the software simulation, Storyline doesn't always know which screens you want. Often you'll capture rollover effects or help text that you don't want in your simulation.
These artifacts need to be edited out of the interactive simulation. And in Storyline it’s really easy to do. Because we create the slides from the recorded video, all we need to do is go back to the video to find a frame where the artifact doesn’t appear.
Watch this video first, then follow the steps below to practice.
Editing the simulation screens is very easy.
- Locate a slide where you need to make an edit.
- Right click on the slide and select Action Fine Tuning. This opens the video panel.
- Use the Previous Frame or Next Frame buttons to locate a frame where the artifact doesn't appear. You can also click and drag frame markers on the video timeline.
- Once you find a frame you like, click OK.
That's how simple it is. Use Action Fine Tuning to select the frame you want, and you're all done. Now it's up to you to practice. Record a simple tutorial like the PowerPoint example above and then practice editing out artifacts and visual cues.