AUTHORWARE SYSTEM: Introduction to Interactions

1. AUTHORWARE SYSTEM:Introduction to Interactions Prof. Man-Gon Park Division of IT & Comm. Colombo Plan Staff College

2. Introduction to Interactions in Authorware 4.0 (I) 1. THE INTERACTION ICON 2. RESPONSE TYPES 3. COMMON RESPONSE TYPE OPTIONS

3. There are several ways to alter the linear execution of an Authorware presentation: (1) decision icons enable the author to decide what path to take; (2) and framework, navigation and interaction icons enable end-users to decide what to do when.

4.  Interaction icons enable the user to branch based on objects such as buttons, hot spots, menus, and so on. An interaction consists of an interaction icon, and one or more response types and result icons, which represent action to take.

5. Eleven Types of Interaction Response • Button  Hot Spot • Hot Object  Target Area • Pull-down Menu  Conditional • Text Entry  Keypress • Tries Limit  Time Limit • Event

6. 1. The Interaction Icon  Multimedia projects that display information in a linear fashion are sometimes called “page turners”.  A button may be used, or the next piece of information presented automatically, but the information is presented in a continuous, linear fashion - one piece of information after another.

7. Contrast this with a project that has navigation buttons that take you anywhere, hot text that when clicked displays additional media content, quizzes and tests with multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions, menus that provide additional navigational paths and so on.  These kind of interactions separate the mundane from the exciting, the uninspired from the inspirational projects.

8. The Anatomy of an Interaction An interaction icon effectively combines the results of three other icons:display, wait, anderase.  A complete interaction consists of several parts, one of which is theinteraction iconitself, Response type icon Result icon, and Result path.

9. Interaction icon A B C D Give Quiz ? Result icon QA QA QA QA Result path Response type icon A Typical Interaction. The components include the interaction icon,a set of response types with associated results and exit paths

10. As shown in Figure, an interaction consists of an interaction icon, which presents the text, hot object and so on, one or more possible user-interaction objects, or response types, and a set of result icons, a series of possible actions to take, one result set for each response type. The final components of an interaction is the result path, which determines where control passes when the user responds to a given interaction.

11. Buttons ? Button 1 Button 2 I I Figure: A Typical Button Interaction.

12. An interaction icon effectively combines the results of three other icons:  Display  Wait, and  Erase. When an interaction icon is encountered, text and graphics inside the icon are shown. This part is similar to the display icon. Here is where you might show quiz questions, a graphic with clickable object (also called hot objects), a graphic with areas you would like to make clickable, and so on.

13. Buttons are also added through the creation of the response types. In Figure two buttons would be created, one called “Button 1” and the other “Button 2”. When an interaction icon is encountered, Authorware then waits for the user to respond.

14. When a response is detected, a mouse click or a key press, for example, Authorware looks at the result icon to the right of the interaction icon, also called target responses, to see if the response matches any of the result icons. • Each result icon represents a possible response, and the response type symbol might be considered a switch.

15. If the user response matches the target response, the switch is closed and control passes to the set of actions you associate with that response type. In the above example Authorware would determine which button was pressed. Once that was determined, Authorware would execute the contents of the associated result icon, one of two map icons in the figure.

16. A B C D Quiz ? A Typical Keypress Interaction Choice “C” is the correct answer.

17. Assume the interaction is to be multiple-choice quiz. The target response icons might look for keypresses for the letters “A”,”B”, “C”, or “D”. The response type would be keypress, and there would therefore be four response types. The corresponding response icons might be sound icons, each of which says, for example, “A” is incorrect, “Please try again”. If “C” is the correct response, the result path for that response would lead out of the interaction, while the others would point back to the interaction icon (called Try Again).

18. The Interaction Dialog Box To view “The Interaction Dialog Box”, add an interaction and the choose Modify>Icon> Properties. Main Options available on the Dialog Box are:  Erase  Erase Transition  Option (Pause Before Exiting, Show button)

20. Options:Pause Before Exiting and Show Button Check Boxes One of the target response icons in an interaction must exit the interaction. This is how the user leaves the interaction and progresses to the next icon on the main flowline. Normally you don’t want the exit process to occur immediately. Instead you might display text, or play a sound. You must pause the exiting process until the sound is played or until the text can be read. To do this, you need to check the Pause Before Existing box.

21. If you do check the Pause Before Existing box, the interaction will temporarily stop, waiting for the user to click the mouse or press any key. However, there is no message to that effect, so the user might not know what to do! Therefore, you will probably want to also check the Show Button box. This will cause Authorware to display a “continue” button as the interaction is exited. As a rule, if you check the Pause Before Existing checkbox, you should also check the Show Button checkbox.

22. Erase Interaction • Interaction content that appears in the Presentation window comes from the interaction icon and possibly from the result icons. The interaction icon might display a quiz question and each response icon a possible feedback message.

23. The choice you make here determines whether to erase the content derived from the interaction icon alone. • There are three choices in the Erase Interaction drop-down list: • On Exit • After Each Entry, and • Don’t Erase

24. (1) The On-Exit Erase Option • This option will erase any content added through the interaction icon. For example, • What was the name of the first computer? • A. Apple II B. EDVAC • C. ENIAC D. None of the above. • Content For a Typical Keypress Example. • Choice “C” is correct.

25. If the On Exit choice is made, the question will be erased when the user makes the correct choice, and the interaction exits. Note, however, any feedback displayed from within the response icon associated with the correct response will not be erased.

26. (2) The After Each Entry Option • Choosing After Each Entry will cause Authorware to erase the screen after the user makes a choice, pressing a button, and so on. If we applied this option to the flow line in above example, every time the user pressed a key (the correct or an incorrect key) the text would be erased, then re-displayed. If the correct response were entered (the one that exits the interaction), the content would be permanently erased, so you wouldn’t need an additional erase icon after the interaction.

27. (3) The Don’t Erase Option • The Don’t Erase option causes the content of the interaction icon to stay in the Presentation Window under all circumstances. In this case, if you need to erase the Presentation Window display, you will need to add an erase icon as the first icon encountered after such an interaction. Figure shows such a flow line.

28. A B C D Quiz ? Erase content of Quiz An Example of The Don’t Erase Option A Flowline that uses the Don’t Erase On Exit Option to Erase Interaction content.

29. Erase Transition If you pushed this option on the Properties: Interaction Icon dialog box you will see a long list of transitions that you can choose among to apply to the Presentation window as it contents are erased. It’s the same list you saw for the erase icon.

30. Erase Transition

31. Erase Transition Categories: All [internal] Cover Dissolve Push Reveal Shark Byte Transitions Strips Wipe Zeus Productions Transitions: Fade In Iris In Iris Out Mosaic None Pattern Spiral Venetian Blind Vertical Blind Zoom from Line Zoom from Point

32. 2. Response Types When you set up an interaction icon, you attach a result, or target, icon to its right. As you add the first icon, Authorware will prompt for a type. Once you choose a type, any additional icon you add are assumed to be of the same type. Of course, you can change types, thus allowing you the possibility of mixing response types within the same interaction.

33. Response Types • Text Entry • Keypress • Tries Limit • Time Limit • Event • Button • Hot Spot • Hot Object • Target Area • Pull-down Menu • Conditional

34. RESPONSE TYPE

35. Buttons • Buttons are commonly used to transfer control or offer a series of choices. When pushed, a button causes Authorware to branch to the result icon attached to that button. The result might be a dialog box, a sound, a digital video, or even a jump to a completely new sub-topic. It’s the use of response like buttons that enable you to create pieces that are truly interactive. • While there is a default button object style, Authorware has an easy way to customize buttons and even add a sound effect, which plays when the button is pushed.

36. Hot Spots • Hot spots are rectangular portions of a display associated with corresponding sets of actions to take. The actions can be triggered by clicking, double-clicking or by simply moving the cursor over the hot spot. The cursor shape can be altered while over the hot spot.

37. An example of a hot spot interaction would be a map of Islamabad. You might create hot spots over the Faisal Masjid, ADBP Building, and Saudi Pak Tower. If the mouse were clicked while over the Tower hot spot, the user would be presented with another image, which might offer an overview of the Tower and new hot spots indicating suggested Tower locations to visit.

38. Hot Objects • A hot object is like a hot spot, but the entire object is hot meaning the user can click, double-click, or simply move the cursor over the object. Hot object areas do not have to be rectangular. Digital movies can be made into hot objects. Hot objects must be in their own icons; they cannot be part of a compound display icon. If you want to make several objects hot, all having the same feedback, place them in the same icon.

39. Target Areas • Use a target area if you want a user to drag an object to a specified area. For example, you might use an icon that depicts a “You are here” situation for an airport. As the user drags the icon to various airline logos, maps appear showing the frustrated traveler how to get to that airline within the terminal. Alternatively, you might be giving a quiz where the student is shown a quotation plus photos of several possible authors. The student must drag the photo of the author to the quotation.

40. A target area is always rectangular, and, while in author mode, Authorware shows an X inside it. When you create one of these you can also define boundaries to prevent the user from moving the object off the screen.

41. Pull-Down Menus • Use a Pull-down menu to enable users to make a selection from a menu appearing at the top of the Presentation window. Each menu requires its own interaction icon. Menu separators that group similar commands, as well as hot keys can also be defined. We usually make Pull-down menu interactions perpetual, so that when control leaves the menu icon, the menus created by it stay active.

42. Conditionals • Use a conditional interaction to display content based on some condition. For example, after three wrong tries, a help dialog box is shown. Conditionals are also used to filter inputs -- only permitting numeric entries, for example. A common use of conditionals is to create hot text, that is, text that when clicked displays additional content.

43. Text Entries • Text entry responses can be range from the simple to the complex. These might be used to ask for the user’s name, or to ask who was the author of Gone With the Wind. In the first example, we want to take no action. In the second example, we want to match what is entered against the correct answer.

44. We need to anticipate incorrect spellings and different methods of capitalization. Authorware also provides the ability to use wild cards, to match n words, to ignore punctuation and extra words, and to specify a particular answer sequence.

45. Keypress Responses Suppose you are presenting a multiple-choice test with possible answers of A,B or C. You need to determine which key was pressed, and provide appropriate feedback. In this example, you would use a keypress response. You can not only check for normal keystrokes, but also Ctrl, Alt, Esc, function keys, and so on. As with Text Entry interactions, you should check for and accept both upper and lower case answers.

46. Tries Limit • Use this to force Authorware to branch after a certain number of tries, even if the user has not matched a correct response. • If used, this will force Authorware to branch after a specified amount of time. You might consider this if you were giving a timed test. A useful option is the ability to show the remaining time.

47. Event • Third-party vendors can write Xtras, extensions to Authorware, In addition, Authorware can utilize Microsoft objects called ActiveX controls. In general there are two types of Xtras: Sprites and scripting.

48. Event • With the other response types, Authorware waits for the user to interact with the piece - push a mouse button, enter a letter or word, and so on. With Xtras, the added code tells Authorware an event has occurred. If a sprite Xtra is used, the event occurs when the user interacts with the object created by Xtra.

49. 3.Common Response Type Options • If a new response type is added, or an existing one opened, a dialog box will be displayed presenting options that apply to that response type. • Authorware provides Eleven types of response options.

50. Common Response Type Option