Advance Slide Automatically After... not working

[academyDesign]

This is a long post.....
My client wants a "movie" look to a regulatory course based on conversations between personae (photos and text for the conversations). This means the client does not want learners to have to click the NEXT button to advance all slides in the course. Note: The course does not have audio, and it's set up with No Side Bar View (Slide Only).

In Slide Properties Manager, I set up the slides to advance automatically, except for Slide 2 (see below); the learner can click NEXT for this slide only.

Inside PPT, from Slide 3 forward, I used the PPT Rehearse Timings feature to time the slide transitions to move forward once the text has loaded and the average learner has finished reading the on-screen text.

In other words: from Slide 3 forward, all slides have a custom timing of "x" seconds in PPT depending on how many seconds it takes the average learner to finish reading the text. (Remember, client doesn't want them to use the NEXT button from Slide 3 forward.)

I set up the initial slides this way:

Slide 1: Intro SWF movie created in Captivate. When complete, auto-advance to next slide.
Slide 2: Intro message with lots of text; required reading. Learner must click NEXT button.
Slide 3: Rehearse Timings set in PPT; in Properties, slides set to advance automatically.

Under Library and Options > Other, I set the Timing to equal the longest slide (with the most text), or 27 seconds.

Resulting Problem
Now ALL my slides do not advance automatically until 27 seconds is completed. I feared that this would happen, but I had to give it a try.

What Are My Options? (What do I do now?)
I'm not very good at using the Timeline Audio Editor to cut seconds out of the other slides. That's the one solution I found under "Support, KnowledgeBase, PPT Design."

And, I fear "y'all" are going to say that I will need to create the course in Captivate or Flash, then import it properly as a SWF movie file to give my client the "movie" look without a NEXT button.

But, please send your solutions, recommendations, etc. my way. I have an open mind and will read every one of them. (At this point, I'm ready to tell my client that we'll use the NEXT button because we have some learners whose first language is other than English. Therefore, we need to let them advance the course at their [comfortable] pace.)

Thank you, and please post replies!

[guru2be]

i think 27 seconds happen after animations are complete

How do you know avg reader speed? without navigation controls it will be frustrating for fast reader and slow reader. Also some readers will lose focus and slide too fast for them. they might want to come back or pause. What if phone rings? Slide keeping going.

To make autoadvance, just create a box that is set to animate with delay. Wait X seconds. Then you can add box on each slide. Move off of screen so people do not see.

[andrewkay]

I appreciate the problem of giving the client what they want, but this is truly a horrible method of doing things. As guru2be points out it will frustrate fast readers and slow readers alike, thus alienating about 99% of the end-users.

I would go with your own suggestion of pointing out to your client that anyone that does not have English as their native language might have a problem completing the course, especially as with no navigation they cannot replay the slide. Hopefully they will see the logic of your response and go with it.

I personally would hate to take a course like this. I would let it play while doing something else and then take my chance with the final test without actually having learned anything.