Chapter 7. Adding Interactivity

When it comes to the New Media field, the currency of "interactivity" has been cheapened. Just because you added navigation buttons to a presentation or found a clever way of adding a user's name to the presen tation does not mean the presentation is interactive.

The best interactive process is a conversation you may have with a friend or colleague. If I speak to my friend Murray, he does three things: He first listens and deciphers what I am saying into a coherent whole. He then thinks about that "coherent whole" and formulates an equally coherent response. Finally, he responds verbally, which thrusts me into the three steps.

Obviously you can't replicate this human-to-human interaction process in a Captivate presentation, but you can simulate it. The speaking can be done through the use of a voiceover audio track (see Chapter 6, "Adding Audio") or through the use of words in the slide. The "thinking" is done by the user carefully considering the meaning of the aural or visual message presented. The response is the action that the user takes, either in the form of entering text or clicking a box.

This chapter focuses on the third step of the process: the response. In Captivate, a response is initiated using

• Highlight boxes

• Click boxes

• Text entry boxes

• Buttons used for the purpose of navigation.

Highlight boxes draw the user's attention to a specific area in a slide. These boxes, which function in a similar manner to highlighter pens, give the highlighted area more emphasis than the other objects in the slide. These objects are rather robust, and you can control their size, color, and transparency as well as how they appear in the slide.

You can use click boxes to test knowledge, navigate to other areas in the movie, navigate to Web sites, and even send an email message.

Text entry boxes require the user to formulate a response and then write the response into the slide. This feature is quite versatile and enables you to ask for responses ranging from the question answers to password entry into the movie.

Buttons require the user to make a navigation decision. For example, responses to a question may result in the user being asked to review a section before proceeding. In this case the button would be the element used for that purpose.