Adobe Captivate, TechSmith Camtasia Studio, Articulate Storyline: Production Times

by Kevin Siegel   

One of the more common questions that I get from new eLearning developers is how much time it will take to produce published content. The answer I provide is dependent upon a couple of factors. For instance, which eLearning tool are you going to use to produce the lessons? Is it Adobe Captivate? How about TechSmith's Camtasia Studio? Or maybe you're going to use Articulate Storyline? (While there's a hot debate as to which of these tools is the best for eLearning, all three are capable... and I'll leave that debate for another day.) Here's another factor: how many minutes of eLearning playtime are you looking to produce? Are you creating a 30-minute course? 60 minutes?

I have extensive experience using Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. In my experience, it will take you approximately 2 hours of labor to produce 1 minute of eLearning playtime if you use Adobe Captivate. If you use Camtasia, your labor will go down a bit (1.5 hours for every 1 minute of playtime). If Articulate Storyline is your tool of choice, developers who use that tool have told me that Storyline is on a par with Captivate. In that case, you should plan on 2 hours of labor to produce every 1 minute of Storyline eLearning.

The production times mentioned above do not include the following:

• Writing an eLearning script. I've found that it could take between 40-80 hours to write a script for 60-minutes of eLearning content.
• Rehearsing the script. Once you're written the script, you'll likely need to run through it multiple times to ensure it's accurate.
• Writing an Audio Script. If you're going to include voiceover audio (and I highly suggest that you do since audio has been shown to improve the learner experience), you should create an audio script. It could easily take you 40 hours or more to prepare an audio script.
• Recording. Once you've written a script, recording screen actions in any of the eLearning tools is simple and shouldn't take more than the actions detailed in the script. For instance, if the script has you recording a 3-minute process in Microsoft Word, it should only take 3-minutes to record the process.
• Developing Assets Externally. I mention below that you can save production time in your eLearning tool by creating as much of the course assets as possible outside of the eLearning tool. Many people create the content in PowerPoint and simply import the content into the eLearning tool. While that means there will be less content to create in the eLearning tool, don't overlook the fact that the content still needs to be created in that other tool. In my experience, creating content in PowerPoint is easy. However, it still takes time. In fact, I'd put the development time in PowerPoint at about the same development time as working within Camtasia (1.5 hours for every minute or presentation play time).

The production clock begins ticking after you create a blank project, open a project containing previously recorded content, or import external content such as a PowerPoint presentation. Production includes, but is not limited to:

• Adding/editing text content such as callouts/captions
• Adding images
• Adding animations
• Adding interactivity (Buttons, clickable hotspots, menus, etc.)
• Creating quizzes
• Publishing to an LMS or web server
• Testing the published content
• Fixing errors found during the testing process
• Republishing and retesting

Looking to save time? You can trim production times significantly by following these tips:

• Create Just In Time eLearning. If creating a software demonstration in Captivate or Storyline, record the lesson and simply publish it without going from screen-to-screen and tweaking any of the timing or the text. When an eLearning developer simply records a lesson and publishes it without much post-production, I call those kind of eLearning modules "just in time eLearning." Depending upon your audience, "just in time eLearning" may be perfectly appropriate. Why spend the production time creating a highly-polished lesson if it's not necessary?
• Use Microsoft PowerPoint. If creating a Soft Skills lesson, create the bulk of the content in Microsoft PowerPoint. All three eLearning tools mentioned above allow you to take existing PowerPoint content and quickly create eLearning out of it. In my opinion, Captivate and Storyline handle the PowerPoint content more elegantly than Camtasia, but the bottom line is that you can re-purpose existing content. Assuming you are satisfied with the original PowerPoint content, and you don't need to add additional content (beyond possibly a quiz) in the eLearning tool, the production time for converting PowerPoint to eLearning should be no more than 1 hour of production time for every minute of eLearning playtime.
• Use Templates. If you start a project with a well-conceived and implemented template, each of your projects will have a consistent look and feel.
• Depending on the Tool, Go Demo or Sim. If you use Camtasia, I suggest creating software demonstrations instead of simulations. If you add interactivity (Flash hotspots) to a Camtasia project, you will need to post the lesson to a server to test the interactivity. That kind of back and forth simply takes too much time. However, creating simulations in Captivate and Storyline is so quick and easy, I think it's actually faster to produce simulations over demonstrations. The pesky mouse pointer that is typically included in a demonstration always need a significant amount of production attention (you'll likely need to adjust the pointer position, pointer path, click effects and click sounds). Since simulations don't typically include a mouse pointer, those production issue go away.

What's your experience with eLearning production times? I'd love to see your comments below and learn about the eLearning tools you're using. How much time it takes you to produce each minute of eLearning.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate. Is Camtasia your tool of choice? We teach a one-day class covering that tool through ASTD. And last but not least, check out our Storyline class.

Comments

[Colum McAndrew]

I had someone comment to me that the figures you quote seem high. Personally I think they are probably about right, although a lot depends on what you are doing and how you do it. For example audio may not be used at all. In my experience adding captions instead of audio in Captivate drastically increases the amount of time it takes to produce eLearning. However this can have big time savings when it comes to localisation.

[Srujan]

Hi Kevin thanks a ton for the info!

[shalini]

Great blog on tools.

[KellyAnne Eucher]

I love the by-minute comparison. My first reaction, like the commenter above notes, was "Wow! That's high"....and then I started doing the math and realized it's right on the money with the hourly figures my team uses. Thanks for sharing.

[Hannah]

I had a midwest for profit recently ask me to create 30 hours of lectures in Storyboard for $750, thinking that they would pay $25 an hour of lecture. I remained calm and didn't laugh.

[Kevin Siegel]

Wow Hannah! I bow in your direction... I don't think I would have remained calm at all. Amazing what little value some organizations place on the level of effort involved in creating eLearning... even with superior tools like Storyline, Captivate and Camtasia.

[Victoriana]

I love the breakdown of time that you noted. Definitely worth passing along to supervisors that wonder why frustration is the tone of the day when someone wants "knee-jerk" training created! It's key to note that a designer really wants to produce effective training every time, not just when time allows.

[Mike Harris]

Even though recording screen actions is technically simple, getting it right on the first take can be challenging even if you are well rehearsed. I develop a fair amount of training on web-based custom software. Adobe Captivate sometimes makes a hash of browser screen simulations and troubleshooting can take more time than recording. There's also the issue of resetting the environment for each take. With MS Word, it's trivial. With even a test instance of an application built on a tightly controlled database, resetting is not trivial. When things go wrong, time for recording screen actions can easily reach 30 minutes or more for each minute of run time. Another barrier to rapid production is the occasional need to begin developing training before a system is finished. Cobbling together interactive screens from bits and pieces of static screen shots is extremely time consuming. When project teams make unreasonable demands, it is best to politely say no. The fact that a thing can be done does not mean it should be done.

[Linda Jordan]

Nice breakdown and information on tools, which I find to be very close to my experience. I do take an exception on your "Recording" estimate. I just love the idea of taking 3 minutes to record a 3 minute narration, but you must be one great voice talent! After nearly 10 years of recording narration, I would triple that estimate. I listen to screens after recording to make sure it sounds right. This immediately doubles the time. An unexpected sneeze, misread, stutter, or realizing that the inflection is not right, or the narration would flow better with a slight rewrite, results in re-recording many screen with yet another listen. I'd also mention that while good narration has been shown to improve learning, I believe bad narration can be very distracting and disengages learners.

[Kevin Siegel]

Linda, the time it takes to record a software demonstration or simulation does not include voiceover audio. In fact, I never, ever, record my audio at the time I record the demo/sim. We import the voiceover audio into the lesson during the production process, slide-by-slide. (I only record voiceover audio during the recording process for the down and dirty video demos that I have been adding to YouTube lately.) In my experience, given a valid script and rehearsals, a 3-minute process should only take 3-minutes to record. (Assuming no hardware or software hiccups.) Then it's off to production, audio, etc.