A Simple PowerPoint Animation to Make Your Course More Human
Thursday, February 11th, 2010 by jeanette
This guest blog entry was written by Articulate Community Manager Jeanette Brooks
Earlier this week I made a quick Screenr video about a session I’m doing at Learning Solutions 2010. To add some interest, I used a “moving hands” animation technique:
I first saw this done in a presentation that Tom Kuhlmann created last year. It’s a really nice way to bring content into the screen. There’s just something friendly and appealing about a human hand moving things around on the screen, rather than objects just animating in and out by themselves. It makes learners feel a little more connected, a little more like you’re right there with them.
Here’s another example of this technique, published in Articulate Presenter:
How it’s done
Some folks in the Articulate Community asked how to create this effect. It’s easy to do — it just involves getting the right images and applying a few motion paths in PowerPoint. Here’s a walk-through of the steps:
As I mention in the how-to video, you can get some hand images for free from eLearningArt. In fact, Bryan Jones from eLearningArt put together this screencast awhile back, with some more ideas for using hand images in your courses. But you’re not limited to buying images. There’s no reason why you can’t take photos of your own hands. That’s what Tom did in his demo.
Give the technique a try and see how it warms up the look and feel of your presentation!
Want more cool ideas?
You can find more great ideas like this one in the PowerPoint section of our Community Tutorials page. Even better, share some tips of your own! Use Screenr to make a quick screencast of your favorite animation technique or e-learning development tip. Include #Articulate in the description when you tweet it — we’ll add it to the collection!
Good tips. Thanks.
Linda D. | Posted at 03:47 pm on February 11th, 2010 | #