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Studio 360 (discontinued)

Score8.8 out of 10

35 Reviews and Ratings

What is Studio 360 (discontinued)?

Studio 360 for PowerPoint, or formerly Articulate Studio, was a PowerPoint plugin used to develop elearning course content. It has been discontinued and is no longer receiving support.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about Studio 360 (discontinued).
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The Story of Articulate Storyline

Incentivized
Mark NowowiejskiView profile
Sr. IT Consultant in Information Technology at The Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • Integrating very well with PPT
  • Allow authors to create ad-hoc video and audio clips on the spot
  • Easy to export SCORM formats for LMS integration
  • Supplies rich library of stock graphics, footage and 'characters' to allow for fast build out

Cons

  • UI is a bit dated, but it's parallel to PPT which puts some users at ease
  • Storyline is PC only, by far the biggest drawback
  • A big slow in rendering video content during export
  • Player is a bit rigid

Return on Investment

  • A high retention rate of students
  • Fairly cheap for team licenses but not as friendly for individuals
  • Once you understand how it works you can build modules very quickly

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Captivate

Other Software Used

Camtasia, Snagit, Adobe Premiere Pro, Zoom, Adobe Photoshop

Wonderful Product with Quirks

Incentivized
Joseph BentonView profile
E-Learning and Instructional Designer in Human Resources at Beachhead Communications (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • In terms of e-learning, there is nothing I can imagine that Articulate Studio can't do; the features are all-encompassing in terms of what they allow a creative author to make.
  • New features that are part of Articulate Studio are game-changers in the amount of time and effort saved by having dedicated and integrated applications performing specific functions such as dedicated graphic imports of royalty-free images and drawings that I would normally pull from the web. Additionally, there are tons of characters with multiple poses and expressions that help to add storyboard characters which can be added/changed to illustrate stories. Separately, this capability was time-intensive and costly.
  • Just having the Review 360 app is a unique game-changer in and of itself. I can't tell you how many different ways that clients prefer to give feedback to e-learning projects: email, Word docs, PowerPoint comments, teleconferencing live comments, etc. and they are all wastes of time compared to using Review 360 where feedback is given on each slide, replies are sent by email and each piece of feedback can be acknowledged and comments removed leaving a clean slate finished product.

Cons

  • If you're in love with SVG graphics like I am, with their small size and super-high resolution at any scale, then you'll be disappointed to know that you can't directly add SVGs. This is a functionality that the web is embracing and it's sad to see Articulate not incorporating such a feature.
  • One pet peeve I have had of Articulate is their "support" which consists of a community board with searchable questions and answers and comments which is often very useful. It is also staffed by support personnel from Articulate. Unfortunately, they can't open a support case or ticket on your behalf and they give the impression they are first-level support and do provide some guidance but not beyond the level of a power-user even though their profile says they are with the company. It's woefully confusing and disappointing compared to most companies that sell software with support.
  • Articulate's products are enormously easier to use than their rivals at Adobe, but Articulate is often in the habit of ignoring many long-term problems which can be found by searching their "support" boards. Strange and weird bugs, if a bit obscure, are never fixed even though they would make an already awesome program that much more stellar.
  • This program is VERY expensive compared to offerings from their chief rival Adobe, but it really does not seem to phase the leadership at Articulate that they may easily quadruple their number of users if they would just cut their cost in half and they do not seem prepared to even experiment with such an offer.

Return on Investment

  • Articulate Studio is a must-have for some clients and lacking it would be a non-starter.
  • Articulate Studio is simply the best time-saver in terms of producing complex e-learning programs; it's not the cheapest, but if you factored in the amount of time it would take to accomplish the same thing on a rival piece of software, you will pay more if you don't use Articulate Studio.
  • My business absolutely relies on Articulate Studio and so there can be no profitability in my business without it.

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Captivate, Adobe Audition, Adobe Captivate Prime and Adobe Connect

Other Software Used

VEGAS Pro, Slack, Zoom

Articulate Studio - Training development for the little guy

Incentivized
Louis Ellis
FSO in Corporate at Constellation West (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Ease of use
  • Compatibility

Cons

  • Registration loop error - keeps asking me to register
  • More course player options

Return on Investment

  • Budget friendly.
  • Was able to meet training compliance's.

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Presenter

Other Software Used

Ascentis, Adobe Acrobat DC

How Articulate Studio Helped Us & Saved $$

Incentivized
John FesterView profile
IT Manager in Information Technology at Travel Planners International (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • They made it very easy to understand how to add new content to the courses, including images, videos or audio, of course, you are still able to do text-based content as well.
  • Creating quizzes has never been easier. The ability to add controls to each question and what actions each answer creates, whether an additional question or passing to the next section. Customizing these actions are very easy to learn and add to your course.
  • Being able to use your own scoring mechanism is awesome! I like SCORM but there are many options to use including a custom one of your own. This ability allows you to pass your students over to a proprietary system that enrolls them in the next course, or use the built-in utilities to provide the next course or quiz, the choice is yours!

Cons

  • The software is robust, it can be intimidating at first. Do not be shy, get in there and play around, you'll learn a lot in 10 minutes. What they could do better is provide a better introductory walkthrough when you first install. It could be a tutorial that allows you to pause and return later to the same point you were at. There are basic tutorials when you first open it but is very limited.
  • The integration of different scoring mechanisms could be improved in the GUI. This section of the GUI has limited information and causes a new user to search for much of the information online. For advanced users, you will know exactly what to do in this screen, but for the beginner you will find yourself scratching your head a bit. Adding a more user-friendly screen, that possibly has a toggle for the advanced mode, would be helpful.
  • I would love to see a more online version, where most of the controls or content is online and can be pulled in to your project, creating a smaller installation. I am the IT Manager, so storage is on my mind and the software is robust...meaning that it also consumes significant storage space.

Return on Investment

  • Prior to using this software, we were using a combination of other software, four in total, to accomplish the same task. Investing in Articulate Studio has saved us an annual cost of +$1,900 just in the software alone. Our ROI is less than 8 months as a result of the savings and time consumption saved by using one software and training on one software only.
  • Having a lower impact on computer resources, Articulate Studio allowed us to install it on more users workstations that were not able to support other software. This reduced cost significantly by not requiring "mega computers" to run the software we previously used. Since Articulate Studio runs so smoothly, we can purchase standard workstations and it runs great on them.
  • Having new employees join the team and training them on producing training courses has never been easier. They only require 3 days of training in Articulate Studio vs. two weeks we needed previously to train on 3 different software to accomplish the same tasks.

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Captivate, Lesson.ly and Camtasia

Other Software Used

Articulate Storyline, Camtasia

Articulate your trainings fast

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Articulate as our primary e-learning solution. The ease of use and ability to get up and running quickly meant that a mid-size company like ours could easily implement computer-based trainings without the need for a ton of dedicated employee hours going towards developing those trainings. Instead, we were able to quickly deploy Articulate and get a handful of managers and super-users up and running and in the same quarter, we deployed 25 CBTs throughout our firm. We are looking at deploying even more as we refine our processes and utilize learning from those trainings to be able to aid our continuous improvement initiatives.

Pros

  • Presentations
  • Computer Based Training
  • Templates

Cons

  • Old UI
  • Slow render
  • Limited Support

Most Important Features

  • Ease of Use
  • Compatability

Return on Investment

  • 25 CBTs updated in the first quarter
  • Less hours required for updating training decks

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Captivate and Camtasia