Speed Up Your eLearning Development With the Interaction Builder

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Here at the eLearning Brothers headquarters, we know Lectora® is a fantastic authoring tool that allows you to create robust eLearning interactions that look great. But sometimes you need to quickly deliver a desktop course to your learners and don’t have the time to build things up from scratch. The quickest way to get the job done is through the Interaction Builder, one of the eLearning Brothers tools included with your Lectora Inspire purchase.You can access the Interaction Builder a few ways. You can go through the Tools ribbon, select Inspire Tools, and then find the Interaction Builder option in the dropdown menu. Or you can also select the Inspire Tools tab that’s usually off to the right side of the application and find the Interaction Builder tab that will be at the bottom when the menu swings out. If you haven’t used any of the eLearning Brothers resources in Lectora Inspire yet, you may need to log in first. You’ll only have to do this once. Contact us if you need account credentials.

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The next step is to choose what kind of interaction you want to use. There are over 100 templates to choose from, including click and reveals, games, quizzes, drag and drops, and many more.Let’s say you want to use a drag and drop activity. In this example, you have five different sections you can edit: an introduction and four draggers. In each of the draggers, you can edit the title text (which is for the draggable object) and the body text (which is for the target area). At any time, you can always click on the preview in the upper left to see your changes in action.

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Next, you’ll want to select a theme. There are over 100 different themes that include background images, button styles, and text colors. Themes can also be edited to more closely match the colors or images you choose. After selecting a theme, you can click on Customize Theme in the top right and change how each of the different elements looks.

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The last step is to save the project—done by clicking the Save button in the top right—and then publish it into Lectora. Clicking the Publish button will give you options, depending on the kind of interaction you’ve chosen. In some cases, you can only select Flash or HTML5, but in a few cases you have an option for both. Choose whichever is best for your end product. Note: Flash interactions will not work in a responsive course. HTML5 interactions will work in a responsive course, but they will not resize responsively. We recommend that items from the Interaction Builder be used primarily in desktop courses.

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Once you’ve chosen the output type, you should see the interaction placed into your Lectora title, simple as that! Any Flash files will be added as an animation, and any HTML5 files will be placed in as a Web Object. If you’d like to follow an example of this, watch this video below to see how it’s done!

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Editor’s Note: Our friends on the eLearning Brothers Team are sharing their awesome eLearning tips here and on their blog. Keep an eye out for more great articles!The Interaction Builder and other eLearning Brothers resources offer you unlimited possibilities for your eLearning development. If you haven’t tried out the Interaction Builder yet, fire up Lectora Inspire—or download a 30-day free trial—and have fun!