If You’re Not Doing This, You’re Wasting Your Reviewer’s Time

I run into this all the time. Someone in the community asks me to review a course. I click the first slide, wait for the animation, sit through the long narration, and then try to click ahead. Navigation is locked. Ugh!

I can tell you now, if someone sends me a course like that, all I am viewing is the first slide and then I’m out of there.

If you need someone to review a course, give them some options. One is to move through the course without being locked down. Another that follows that, if I need variables to be at a certain value

Two ways to build a shortcut menu

The fix is a hidden navigation button or menu that gives you fast access to any slide in Storyline. The first option is a button placed on the slide itself, often tucked into a corner. The second is a custom player tab that stays visible no matter which slide is active. Both approaches work, and which one you choose depends on how your slide layouts are set up.

Click to view the example

Option 1: a shortcut button on the slide

• Place a small button in a corner of the slide and link it to a hidden menu scene.
• During production, keep it visible so you and your reviewers can find it.
• Before publishing, make the button transparent or replace it with a hotspot.
• The button stays in the course in case you need it after launch, but learners won’t see it.
• Put it on the master slide to apply it to all layouts at once.

Option 2: a custom player tab

• A player tab has one advantage over a slide button: it doesn’t depend on slide layout. You can see how it works in the demo above. Even if an object covers the button area on a given slide, the player tab is still accessible.
• Create a separate scene with slide links, then add a custom player tab pointing to it.
• Turn the tab off before publishing for learners.
• The result is a navigation layer for you and reviewers that learners never see.

Extend the same idea to variables

A hidden shortcut menu can do more than navigate slides. A similar approach works for testing variables. Create a dashboard to adjust Storyline variables.

• Build a small variables dashboard linked from your shortcut menu.
• You can set custom values there and verify that triggers are firing correctly.
• That saves time in QA compared to running through the whole course on every change.

See the variables demo

Key takeaways

Building a shortcut menu into every course is a habit that pays off the first time a reviewer needs it. As courses grow more complex, jumping to a specific scene or testing a variable in seconds becomes more valuable. The technique also makes it easier to ask for and act on feedback. Reviewers who can navigate freely give better notes. How do you handle navigation shortcuts in your courses, and is there a method that’s worked well for you?