You’re commissioning an eLearning project, talking to your development partner and they mention two tools: Articulate Storyline and Articulate Rise. Both are part of the Articulate 360 suite and both are used to create professional eLearning courses, but they’re designed for very different types of projects.
You don’t need to become an expert in either tool. But having a basic understanding of what each one does well will help you make better decisions about your project and have more productive conversations with your eLearning partner.
What’s the difference?
In simple terms, Storyline gives your development team complete creative freedom. Every screen can be designed from scratch with custom interactions, branching scenarios, animations and advanced assessments. It’s the tool of choice for immersive, highly interactive learning experiences. The trade-off is that it takes longer to develop in, which means higher costs.
Rise is a more streamlined tool that uses pre-built content blocks to create clean, modern courses quickly. Courses built in Rise are automatically responsive, meaning they look great on desktops, tablets and phones without any extra work. The trade-off is that there’s less flexibility in terms of design and interactivity.
When to ask for Rise
Rise is typically the right choice when your priority is getting quality content to your learners quickly and consistently, especially if they’ll be accessing it on different devices.
It works particularly well for:
- Induction and onboarding programmes where new starters need to get up to speed on policies, procedures and company culture.
- Compliance and regulatory training that needs to present information clearly and work reliably across devices.
- Product or process knowledge courses that are primarily informational, using text, images, video and simple knowledge checks.
- Projects with tight timelines or limited budgets where you need a professional result without the cost of a fully custom build.
Rise is also worth considering if your team will need to make updates to the course after launch. It’s straightforward enough for someone without specialist eLearning skills to maintain.
When to ask for Storyline
Storyline is the right choice when your course needs to do more than present information. If your learners need to practise making decisions, explore realistic situations or engage with content in a hands-on way, Storyline makes that possible.
It’s typically the better fit for:
- Scenario-based learning where learners work through realistic situations and experience the consequences of their decisions.
- Skills development courses where learners need to practise applying what they’ve learned, not just read about it.
- Heavily branded experiences where the course needs to match your organisation’s visual identity precisely.
- Advanced assessments such as randomised question banks, drag-and-drop activities or scored simulations.
- Courses with narration and timed animations where audio, visuals and interactions need to work together seamlessly.
Storyline courses aren’t natively responsive in the way Rise courses are, so if mobile access is a priority, that’s something to flag with your development team early on.
How to decide: questions worth thinking about
You don’t need to arrive at a decision on your own. A good eLearning partner will guide you through this. But thinking about the following questions beforehand will help those early conversations go more smoothly:
- How will your learners access the course? If people will be completing it on phones or tablets, Rise’s built-in responsiveness is a significant advantage.
- What do you need learners to be able to do afterwards? If the goal is awareness or knowledge, Rise is usually a great fit. If learners need to change their behaviour or practise a skill, Storyline’s interactivity is likely what you need.
- What’s your timeline? Rise courses can be developed significantly faster than Storyline courses, so if you’re working to a tight deadline, that’s an important factor.
- Will you need to update the course regularly? If your team will be maintaining the content in-house, Rise is easier to work with.
- How important is visual customisation? If the course needs to match specific brand guidelines down to the last detail, Storyline offers that level of control.
How we can help
At The Learning Rooms, we develop eLearning courses in both Storyline and Rise every day, and we’re equally experienced in both. Recommending the right approach for your project is one of the first things we do during the eXplore stage of our eXACT development process. We’ll look at your audience, your content, your goals and your budget, and advise on the approach that will deliver the best results.
If you have a project in mind and you’re not sure where to start, get in touch. We’ll help you work out what you need.
