This guest blog entry was written by Articulate VP of Community Tom Kuhlmann.

In an earlier post, I outlined three creative ways to use the linking feature in Engage ‘09. Here is another way that is both practical and really fits the interactions well.

Two of the most popular interactions in Engage ‘09 are the Glossary and FAQ interactions. This makes sense because a lot of what drives rapid elearning courses is organizing content and getting it out quickly. Typically, when you use a Glossary or FAQ interaction, it’s probably more about providing useful resources than what we’d consider traditional elearning. In either case, these two interactions help a lot of people deliver their course content quickly.

“So where does the linking feature fit in?” I’m glad you asked.

Let’s look at the Glossary interaction. What we cover here can easily be applied to your FAQ interactions.

In the example below, I used the hyperlink feature to augment the definition of e-support by providing a link to CRM.

In a Glossary interaction your content is broken into little pieces, usually separated by terms, parts, or acronyms. While they are distinct pieces, many times they are linked to other terms or concepts. So you want to be able to redirect the user to additional information.

As you can see in the image below, the user is probably more likely to click on a term like “support” for a definition than “e-support.” However, by using a link I can quickly redirect the user to the right place.

Sometimes you have multiple words that all mean the same thing. It doesn’t make sense to create a definition for all of the similar words. In those cases, just add the word to your Glossary and then create a hyperlink to the appropriate definition.

As you can see below, there’s a simple explanation of the Mac OS with a link for more at the Apple web site. This allows you to provide quick explanations and redirect the user to a place to get more if they want it.

There are times when you only want to provide a quick piece of information because you have all sorts of great content on your intranet or web site. Why reinvent the wheel? In those situations, just add a hyperlink to the URL. It will save you time and give your learner access to additional information if they need it.

Creating links in the Engage interactions is easy. How you use them is where you get the power and create valuable resources for your learners. You can view the Engage tutorials or this post to learn more about creating links.