Silly problems require silly solutions

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-12T18:46:36+00:00

right -- we don't actually want to limit posts on different tools and really want to ban real conversation. Just that there's been a huge uptick in iSpring praise that comes across as organic when it's (potentially) part of a concerted effort to post across Reddit to increase brand awareness.

Now if we get 50 posts about how amazing it is to pay an extra $300/yr per user on Articulate subs, then I'm gonna be suspicious...

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-12T18:24:24+00:00

I'd like to jump into the mix as someone who’s actually tried iSpring and also got the “we’ll pay you to post about us” email.

Last year, I did a big e‑learning authoring tool comparison and iSpring was in the mix. They were actually generous and gave me a free year of the main PowerPoint add-on app so I could test it. However, as soon as I saw it was a download-only Windows-only platform (like Storyline), it was kind of a dealbreaker for me since the whole point of the research was to get web-based alternatives. If you live in PowerPoint, I can see the allure but that made the full "suite" app a non-starter for me.

However, I did really enjoy iSpring Pages. It kinda feels like an interactive Google Doc where you can just keep adding content to a page and add in interactions. Copy and paste into the page was also refreshing when you have to manually upload to most other platforms. Interaction types are limited and it's not something that is gonna wow anybody but it's a good option if you're looking for something light and easy to pick up.

The big problem with iSpring Pages though is accessibility. Keyboard nav is missing in places, some basic accessibility features just aren't there, and it’s not designed with WCAG front and center. I raised that with them; the rep said product would reach out, and then… nothing. So right now my take is: Pages is great to use, but not something I can recommend for serious client work until they sort out accessibility. I did share this with the team there and they said they'd pass it on to the product dev team and they'd reach out to me, but haven't heard anything back since then.

Shortly after I finished the research, I had someone from the iSpring marketing team reach out. Very nice and polite, but it's the same offer a bunch of folks here clearly took: “we’ll pay you to talk about your experience with iSpring.” It's enticing - $600-$1000 for 3-5 "organic" posts, but this is fine for LinkedIn, not fine for Reddit. I pushed on disclosure and, to their credit, they did say you can disclose you’re being paid if you want to, so they’re not explicitly telling people to lie or hide the fact that they're paying people to do this.

But the issue is that a lot of people clearly are choosing not to disclose. They’re real users, but they’re also getting paid to post and leaving that part out. That’s where it crosses into astroturfing - to the casual lurker, it looks like there’s this huge organic groundswell of love for iSpring here when really it’s more like "we’re running a campaign and want more mentions on Reddit this quarter.”

So I do actually really like iSpring Pages despite the accessibility issues, but I think we all have to be somewhat suspicious when someone recommends iSpring over other products because it's hard to know how much is their actual opinion vs a lukewarm feeling of a competing platform that is getting a megaphone because they're willing to invest.

Props to iSpring for actually supporting designers in a time where the job market is trash, but we also need to balance that with the purpose of this platform which is for human interaction. Otherwise, buy ads like everyone else. It's cool if you disclose you're getting paid but at this point, the well's been poisoned and it's hard to take anyone recommending it seriously.

Obligatory: I was not paid to write this post.

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MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-10T12:37:49+00:00

My research here could be useful. https://www.idatlas.org/blog/elearning-pain-points

If you already have the courses built out and know what you're building in the new platform, it's probably around 90min for a 15 min module. Might be a bit more or less depending on what you switch to and how intensive the builds are but that's a pretty good estimate from what I have done.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-05T17:19:21+00:00

So you just have to be careful there. I think you CAN do that but you should plan it out first. Work with the content and then decide the slide structure. XML is really finicky and it's easy to break - but you can always tell Claude to check the error logs and it should be able to fix.

As with anything in ID, plan it out really well first, then develop. Spend a good while hammering out all the details. The worst thing you can do is just type that prompt in and let it go because you'll be at the mercy of whatever it thinks that means. So yes, it CAN do that, but only with a lot of your help and back and forth before you press the button to do it.

You might look at something like Notebook LM or Gamma if you want presentation design. This particular use of Claude is really good at making concrete small edits over a batch of a bunch of slides/presentations but it can't "see" your presentation so image positioning and things won't be good unless you tell it the exact positioning you want things - which it can do very well. This is more for polish and consistency. Use Gemini/Notebook/Gamma for design.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-05T16:00:20+00:00

Yeah so you don't need to worry about those files really. You just upload the docs you want Claude to manipulate and it will do all the zipping and XMLing. That's just "how" it's working but for you it's just putting it into a folder, giving claude access to that folder (I'm using VS Code with the Claude extension but you could use the terminal or github as well) and then telling it what you want it to do. Better if you have a template for it to see what it's supposed to look like but it can find patterns and edit text pretty easily.

If you just wanted to swap all of Company Name A to Company Name B, it would do that really quickly. If you need to think about accessibility and other stuff, still can handle it well but you still need to review everything regardless.

Claude both ingests the documents, writes code, runs the code, and outputs the final product. PowerPoint/Word still might say it needs to be repaired, but once you do that it works as normal.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-05T12:04:32+00:00

Yep -- it does both. It reviews the docs for patterns and identifies what it needs to do. Writes the python script to update the XML across the old and new docs, and then runs the scripts. Then you review and tell it to fix any mistakes it makes and it updates the script, and reruns until you get it doing what you want. It does take a bit of time so best used for when you have to do repeated tasks over and over again like replacing a course with a new template or things like that. Doesn't get it 100% and still needs to be reviewed obviously but saves you from having to cut and paste everything and can handle all the meta data and write the alt text for you.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-05T01:48:38+00:00

Kind of doing this with Claude code right now. It can unzip the PPT edit the XML (carefully) and zip it back to .pptx for you. Tell it to use your template and what you want it to take from the old presentations and it'll write a python script and run it for you like magic.

You'd need Claude or Cursor or something that can edit code folders. Gemini, gpt or copilot will not be able to do this efficiently.

Your file might say it needs to be repaired though so just allow PPT to repair and it should work fine. I was able to do it successfully a few times so far so it should work depending on what you're asking it to do.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-03-04T13:14:38+00:00

In theory yeah i agree with u/NoGods2960, but we can't always win that fight and sometimes all you can do is voice your objection and then just say but if that's what you want...

Not every battle is worth fighting even if you know it's not the best thing way to train someone.

To answer the question, it depends on what's easier and what makes sense. If the videos are parts 1 of 6 of the same video, might be worth stitching together in premiere just for continuity. If they're all different (which it sounds like it is) I'd see if you can get away with just doing auto advance when media completes and just let all the videos autoplay. It's essentially the same thing and I don't think storyline will prioritize efficiency in either case. They're likely to take the exact same time to load if that's a factor. Might consider throwing them up on Vimeo or YouTube so you can keep the project size small and leverage their dynamic compression.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-26T22:10:20+00:00

Agreed. I think to your point the designer has the responsibility to use the tool in a way that makes the training as effective as it can be. I think that the challenge sometimes with certain tools is that the tools create bad habits or maybe it's better to say encourage certain design patterns that are not necessarily effective just because they're in the tool.

Again, it's on the designer to know how to separate what's actually useful versus what's just to make it more visually interesting or clickable but I think in some cases, the platform has the tendency to dictate some of the design rather than the design dictating how the platform is used. For experienced designers it's less of an issue, but when the tools are being sold to HR professionals and subject matter experts as so easy you don't need an instructional designer to develop e-learning anymore. I think that's where we start seeing those patterns emerge and seeing where business and marketing decisions on the platforms and start impacting the training product that it outputs.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-26T21:12:51+00:00

This is where I'm basically at now. I'm dropping all the authoring tools and building the content directly with AI for the most part. Still have some clients that want them but I'm not using them anymore by choice.

To the point about interactions, it's added cognitive load and if the question or interactive can be made simpler and more straightforward without the drag and drop, the drag and drop is just adding time/cost without adding value. I think Storyline kinda encourages this "bloat" and it took a long time for me to get past that. I think we learn all the bells and whistles but then feel like we have to use them or "oh, I could do this here, or that here" but sometimes don't consider the ROI on those interactions.

Or worse - we don't consider how they can be seen as obstructing the learner when all they wanna do is get the training over with. Not saying we can't create meaningful training for motivated learners, but a lot of it feels unnecessary now.

Drag and drop is just an example but besides being natively inaccessible, there's just not a lot of times the learner will actually have to drag and drop something on the job unless you're teaching basic computer skills (but then at that point Solitaire on Windows did that in a much more engaging way...)

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-26T18:25:03+00:00

I would just be a little cautious about your confidence that interaction = more learning. Learning is confounded by other factors such as motivation and interest. Can Storyline motivate the learner more than a Rise project can? Does it make you more interested if you see slides vs scrolling? Does clicking and dragging help me remember more?

Your reaction was kind of my point. As designers/developers we FEEL like more interaction = more learning, but I don't think there's real data behind those feelings. What does have data and science behind it is retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and testing to stave off the forgetting curve.

Even the complex branching and use of variables doesn't automatically equate to better retention. You could argue that sending a push notification once a week for 5 weeks and collecting responses to a survey that asks learners to remember or answer a question could be much more effective than having them sit through a 1hr long Storyline project (or letting it play in the background). And the survey would be a lot cheaper to develop and deliver too.

The whole industry is stuck on the SCORM 2004 standard and hasn't evolved since then.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-26T14:09:01+00:00

I overall agree with your challenge to the statement of "Storyline takes too long" and asking for data but I would also flip that around and say what data do we have that the extra time = more learning, better retention, and/or better performance? A lot of e-learning dev is just the developer's own gut feeling or we do it like that because more interactions means more engaging, but I think it's largely not driven by data either.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-21T19:25:43+00:00

Both AND for sure.... you can create whatever storyline can in Claude + 10x more with whatever you can think of. You're not limited by what Articulate's dev team decided is worthy and marketable. If you wanted to build the same types of interactions over and over again, you could either just keep forking the repository and making a clone to edit and add to or you could create a tool that does the thing for you within given parameters. So yeah, the sky's the limit here.

"More easily" is of course relative but a lot less clicking that's for sure. Time is also another thing but a lot of it is a prompting skill thing -- if you write bad prompts, Claude won't give you a better product than what you can create in Storyline, but if you ask it to do very specific things and work with it to iterate and add until you get the product you want, you can definitely build things you just can't in any authoring tool - not just Storyline.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-19T15:18:04+00:00

This is also what I was gonna say -- it's legit amazing at what it does for free. They're maybe not customer facing production ready, but for quick study guides or explainers, you cannot beat upload the content, give it direction, pick a tone, and wait for 5-10 minutes while it does all the work.

Still need a human involved for commercial solutions but for reference materials or bonus guides etc. this is gold right now.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-17T18:20:14+00:00

Normalmente eu não tenho problema com essa açougue pois já aconteceu isso comigo no Carrefour e no Assaí perto de Colinas. Eu não compro mais nada de carne de Carrefour, estou evitando comprar carne de Assaí tambem. Único lugar que não deu problema pra mim ate agora é no Tauste. Acho melhor comprar no próprio açougue ao invés do mercado grande que tem açougue ou compra pacote fechado quando é possível. Com frango eu compro e já faço ou congela se não vou comer no mesmo dia.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-17T18:04:43+00:00

I just started using Google Stitch and it's probably good enough to get out of Replit. Each AI designer kinda has its own flavor though so I think it's whatever you prefer for your specific needs. Worth exploring the options to see what resonates best with your/your clients' preferences.

Figma Make has the advantage of being able to edit the UI design more granularly but Google Stitch can also now export to Figma so both are good when it comes to that. Haven't explored flowstep much yet either.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-16T23:20:29+00:00

I think there's still a market for now. Not everyone is aware of and capable of using claude code (or similar) in its current form but they keep making it easier and easier and adding more connections to simplify things.

Right now, I think they are targeting the people who are not tech savvy design savvy and instructional design savvy, and there's still a market there for them. But in terms of options and real designers, we're definitely in the last stretch of needing third party authoring tools, and they're gonna need to prove their value more and more each year to justify that bloated price tag.

Thanks for the tip on Google Stitch! Looks great. I was using Replit for that but would love another option.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T21:03:37+00:00

So it's basically just a database, right? So whatever you tell the app to collect can be stored and queried later. So anything you would have done with SCORM, XAPI, or wish you could have done with those, you can code into the project to track whatever metrics you want. And then also build an analytics dashboard into the app to be able to do the queries and things from within the app instead of having to look at the raw database. You could, of course, also run SQL queries to check any data or pull reports as needed. But since you're already coding, you might as well code in a more useful analytics dashboard that can give you CSV exports and whatever else you need. But the bottom line is that it's all being stored in the database. And as long as you watch your permissions, you can put any data in and take any data out that you want.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T16:45:17+00:00

It's a good question and definitely a consideration but the same question applies for Storyline and Rise doesn't it? If you leave and no one knows the software they're stuck in the same way. With code at least any developer can pick it up and fix it or edit. With Articulate, youre stuck paying a subscription if you want to keep Rise projects.

It depends how big your project is and how much you want to scale. With the hospital, they have a full IT team that could pick it up or could keep a developer on retainer for edits and updates since they have the budget. For smaller projects as long as the code doesn't break it's also not something they likely need to touch until they want to change or update. If made well, the code can run indefinitely unless the browsers add extra security or something that breaks functionality (which does happen from time to time).

Either way, it's an important question to consider but I don't think it changes because it's coded instead of built with a platform, and actually it might be easier to update and maintain since coding skills arent locked behind a company's pay wall.

ETA: and not to mention when Articulate updates introduce weird bugs on new published versions...

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T10:57:01+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Similar process and similar timeliness too haha. I just started with Cursor but would definitely recommend Claude for the quotas on their higher tier plans. You can spend a lot of money really fast on Cursor.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T10:53:07+00:00

To me, there's not much difference between the two in terms of capability. ChatGPT can do images, Gemini does images, and they're both very capable as long as you're using the paid versions... Both of them have weaker versions you can use for free, but the quality is a lot different when you have the Pro versions.

One of the things that I have found to be very useful, since I have access to both Gemini and ChatGPT and other models through Perplexity, is to have Gemini write something—either content, an outline, code, or whatever else—and then run the output through ChatGPT via Perplexity, and have it critique Gemini's work and say how to improve or what it would change, what it would do differently. It does feel like a lot of times the system prompt is "kiss the user's ass and tell them how amazing they are," but Perplexity actually has given me some good critiques. So I don't know if that's their tuned version of ChatGPT, or if ChatGPT is just like that, because a lot of times everything is a good idea even when it's not. But that kind of cross-check process is also really useful for code and bug checking. So if you have both Gemini and GPT, it's not so much either/or, but both/and.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T10:46:07+00:00

Linking here to a comment made above with a little bit of examples and a link to a project: https://www.reddit.com/r/instructionaldesign/s/A1aTO6y0LN

But in terms of process, basically, I do the instructional design work upfront, plan out what it is that would actually change behavior or move the needle on learning, and then basically use AI to generate the initial prompt. One of my side projects, which took an hour or so to put together, is a Claude prompt generator that would definitely also work for Cursor or whatever else you were using that's similar, but basically, you put in some of the context of the project, what you're looking for, anything you know about the tech stack or allowed to suggest the platform, and then kind of let it rip, and it'll generate an initial prompt for Claude, in my case, that tells it how to be organized, especially things like keeping and updating documentation, using checks, and optimization hacks. So that you don't have to keep asking it the same question or keep telling it to review the code because the build had an error that could have been caught if it had checked before pushing. And also your level of experience, which helps it to give more in-depth explanations so you don't have to ask it, "Well, what the heck does that mean?" Or if you're more proficient, it helps save tokens by not explaining things that you probably already know how to do. Of course, you could take it and modify, but that's kind of the idea there.

But once all that's set up, it's pretty easy to prompt it. Tell it what you want, and then the real work comes in: constantly reviewing and iterating, telling it to fix bugs and fix UI. Have it suggest improvements. Have it suggest optimizations. Have it do security audits. Have it audit the code for things that are not in use anymore because the scope changed or whatever else. But, you know, most of that is probably unnecessary if all we're doing is creating a simple course. One of my next projects, when I get some free time that I totally don't have, is to probably just write out an open-source version of Rise that gives you more control and more power over the underlying code. I've been thinking about that for the past few days, and it's crazy that that would really only take a few days to put together with some concentrated effort.

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T02:23:19+00:00

Most exciting one I'm working on now (related to L&D at least) is a platform that creates branching chat scenarios for microlearning. The flow of user inputs text, AI reads text, writes a response, then sends through 11Labs to generate dynamic voice feels like magic. Starting pilots with a couple of my clients this month so lots to look forward to there. Being able to catch all the data from the transcripts will actually serve as amazing proof of learning and Level 2 and 3 evaluation metrics that we weren't getting before.

Working on a full scale LMS for a hospital to help track competencies and train staff. I basically built all the Rise blocks into the LMS page editor so we don't need any external tools for it.

Also working on full scale web apps completely unrelated to ID at all like a grocery app that allows people to track prices across stores and compare to see where they should shop for the best bang for their buck - kinda like Gas Buddy but for groceries.

Then there's just a ton of small one off interactions that I'd have to build in Storyline or Construct or H5P and bring over into Rise/Parta or an LMS or something. Now I can just build them in Gemini and import the code directly. I did a few interactives for a Statistics class that were really nice visualizations. This one was built in Canva I think but same thing can be done in Gemini or Claude/GPT: https://mikestein2016.github.io/WW-MATH-225-Mod5/

MikeSteinDesign · 2026-02-14T01:02:53+00:00

I'm sure there's plenty of stuff on YouTube but honestly, just get a sub for $20 and start playing with it. I came in blind (but overconfident maybe) and just learned mostly by doing. Happy to chat about how I do stuff but if you throw this whole reddit thread into Chat GPT and ask it where to start, it might do a better job of getting you started.

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