Participant

Question

Adobe Captivate Community in 2020

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
April 2, 2020
4 replies
3209 views

Why is there not a better daily community for Captivate for Instructional Designers...I am an Adobe user through-and-through, but I am very envious of the Articulate community...just sad Adobe doesn't compare and this has been an ongoing issue...makes me want to switch! Am I missing something here? Is there something comparable?

I

InAndOrOut

Participating Frequently

I totally agree with you. I’d just go ahead and switch. When a Company loses touch or doesn’t put it’s customers first, it’s time to do that. I’ve been an Adobe user since my Journalism department in college moved from wax paste-up of exacto’d article strips onto the backing board, and purchased all new Macs:

...running Aldus Pagemaker and eventually Photoshop 1.0! OMG I’m dating myself hard.

But the community part I don’t think they do quite as well. At least not as good as other companies are doing now. And ‘Experts’ in forums seem to come with an elitist tone in responses. My take anyway. Plus Articulate is rapidly becoming the corporate standard due to usability and friendly interface. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Captivate Classic because it allowed me so much customization, but the complexity of the learning curve (taking months a couple years ago to figure out all the ins and outs to achieve that kind of customization with code/js, etc.) and NOW?, having it all go down the drain as they merge into the one Captivate (I’m sorry but I call it dumbed-down) version that locks all customization down.
If you get a chance, also check out ELB’s Lectora. I’ve worked with all three course authoring apps so they have pros and cons. THe biggest con for Adobe right now I think is cooking fast to get as much of Captivate Classic into a workable Captivate (2019) without breaking it or losing people. Their attention is on the merging of the two not on keeping the Classic folks happy, but tailoring to the younger crowd that doesn’t have the hands on or programming skill set. AI is great, so that’s getting built into course authoring now, but I still like to create with my own two hands. :-)

P

Philippe5E6E

Participant

Hi everyone, I'm a new Captivate user, but soon ex-user if I can't find better support! After reading all the posts here, I see I'm not the only one finding Adobe's effort is less than insuficient to provide efficient help. Do I have a chance to get technical help here? I'm asking because I saw no post related to anything beside deficient customer support. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't even see an option (button) to create a new post, only reply... Thanks in advance.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Hi @Philippe5E6E

I see you've replied to a five-year-old inactive thread.

For best results, please start a new topic with a specific product question at the link below. Use the blue Post or Post to Community button to start a new topic. This community's product experts will be happy to assist you any way they can.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/captivate/ct-p/ct-captivate

Thanks.

[Old topic locked by moderator.]

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Stagprime2687219

Legend

This question comes up from time to time and there are many who agree with you.

The eLearning Community that Lilybiri pointed out is not much of a community. Perhaps a community in name only.

It was actually slightly better than it is today just about a year or so ago. (Although it was still lacking). Some updates were made which made things more difficult and many simply do not come back consistently. They have no reason to. The user experience surrounding searching for content, posting original stuff, and responding to others is quite frustrating at best. There are a handful of regulars and that is about all.

Many people even requested challenges like the Articulate community has over at ELearning Heroes and a few of us tried to get one started but all of the interested people did not come back to participate.

It does not help that we have to sometimes wait for several days before the items we post are moderated and become visible.

sabre123

Participating Frequently

First, I agree that more needs to be done here, in terms of engaging CP users. Like stag mentions, this forum has a few active members and that is about it. It may just be a case of, Articulate as a company has a WAY narrower user base and can devote a focused effort on keeping them engaged and happy. Adobe is a monster and CP is a tiny piece of the corporate puzzle.

Having said that, Articulate may have the market cornered on the happy hero stuff, but to use Storyine on a daily basis would be my worst nightmare. Mind you, I'm more of a technical guy than an ID. Having been forced to use SL on a large complex course, and suffer through those "triggers," well that was practically unbearable.

Their employees on the forums kind of annoy me, too. "I see so and so has got you all straightened out!" Too many exclamation points and way too cheery. I understand the reason, but it's just not for me.

My hope is that the CP base is robust enough to sustain it over the long haul.

Stagprime2687219

Legend

I don't think I Articulated (pun intended) my point very well on the Articulate staff on the forums. Those people have a pretty good grasp on how to use the programs, even though they probably lean towards the sales side. Do you think Adobe even has staff that could fill those roles?

I think their "customer care" staff are utility people who can troubleshoot a myriad of Adobe products through problem/solution type flowcharts or something. But finding an "expert" on CP in the support staff would be unlikely. The sales team would be even less likely.

I just looked at the Adobe Customer Care page, and got a banner that said, "Our support center is currently experiencing long wait times. Skip the queues and reach us in the Community."

Kind of ironic that they point customers to the Community to reach "them" but in reality, they are reaching "us," the people in the trenches that know their products.

The last time we had a discussion similar to this one and I expressed my thoughts, someone from Adobe actually reached out to me privately and we had a few exchanges. They seemed genuinely interested in my thoughts on how the community could be improved. I did share several thoughts along with my rationale for each of them.

Not sure how far that will go.

**Speculating here...

Do you think it is possible that there may be a mindset of "If we (Adobe) are too active then it will stifle the participation of customers because "the experts have spoken"?

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Moved from Community Help to the Captivate forum.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

janethewitt.atlAuthor

Participant

Is there a link to where it was moved to?

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