Project Charm

[chrismay_at_delta]

Just watched the keynote from Adobe eLearning World 2021. The new version of Captivate, code-name Project Charm was quickly demoed. It looks like the interface has been majorly updated/changed. I'm not sure if I have ever seen an application get such a drastic change in one go. I'm not saying Captivate didn't need it, but we all got used to the way it was.

I hope the demo was a very simplified demo - I did not see a lot of the advanced features we use on my team. I hope they are still there.  

I'm also curious if there are changes to the Captivate player code. We use the JavaScript API and widgets very heavily. I hope we do not have to re-work all those for this new version.

It looks like creating responsive eLearning migh be a little easier in this new version.

What did everyone else think?

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

That comment was meant for those already participating in the PRIVATE beta. The private beta has a non-disclosure agreement and should not be discussed openly on the internet. I was attempting to be subtle.

[etm1000]

The email I got in March about the public beta just said that it would be "be released some time closer to the main launch."

However, that same email did invite me to "reach out" if I was interested in the private beta, (which I did), saying they would consider the request--but I never heard from them about it after that, either way. 

[craig_kasnoff]

Public or private issue aside, the Adobe Captivate team has treated its current user base / customers with total disregard when it comes to the new Captivate release. All promise with no updates. And that is unfortunate.

Adobe makes great products and perhaps the new version of Captivate will be as great as their other products. One can only hope it will be. But the lack of communications with the current Captivate customer base by the Adobe Captivate team -whether it is about delays or other issues- clearly shows they do not respect their customer base enough to communicate with them. They made an announcement about Charm late last year, and now, over eight months later Captivate users have heard virtually nothing about the program or its progress (or lack of). And Captivate users still have no information when the new version will be released.

Personally, I have stopped waiting for the new version to be released and am making do with the existing version. As others have said in this discussion thread have said, there are still many things that can be accomplished well with the current version of Captivate. And that's what I am focusing on. However, because of how the Captivate team has treated its user base I have certainly lost a lot of respect for Adobe as a company, and I have lost both respect AND trust for the Adobe Captivate team.

Because of this, no matter how good the new release of Captivate is, I will not be recommending it to anyone in the future. And that may not matter to Adobe, but it should.

Word of mouth advertising is without question the most powerful way to market a product. I am sure Adobe knows this. I have hundreds of thousands of people who visit my endangered species education websites each year and my visitors include both teachers and students which is exactly the market Adobe and Adobe Captivate are trying to reach.

Now loosing free marketing to hundreds of thousands of potential customers each year may not matter to either Adobe or the Captivate team, and I get that. But it is the only thing I can do to respond to what I feel has been total disregard by the Adobe Captivate team for its current customers.

I really do hope the new Captivate release is amazing. That would be great for those who use Captivate to create e-learning modules and also for those who will be learning from the products made in Captivate.

But through all this I also hope Adobe realizes the disservice it has done to its current Captivate base by giving them the expectation of a new Captivate release and then totally ignoring them as if they didn’t exist.

The reality is we do exist. And we are the reason Adobe exists.

Just saying.

[RodWard]

Regrettably, I have to agree with everything you have said.  The only suggestion I would make is that you need to voie your concerns to people INSIDE the Adobe software company, hopefully someone in charge of Adobe Support. 

Posting your comments here on the Captivate User Forum is only reaching the same people that are suffering the same issues you are lamenting.  Sadly, end users like ourselves have no leverage whatsoever to change the behaviour of the people responsible for Adobe's poor support of this product.

I cannot offer any suggestions as to HOW you can contact the people that matter.  But if (as you say) you have a platform that reaches a significant audience, by all means use it to get the message out there that Adobe could do a lot better in their client support space. 

Who knows, perhaps somoeone inside Adobe's decision-making circles also happens to care about endangered species.  If Adobe Captivate continues to neglect Captivate, it could very likely become an endangered species of software.

[craig_kasnoff]

Hey Rod...

I agree that reaching people INSIDE the Adobe management system is the best way to voice my concerns and effect change. However, my guess is that Adobe management already realizes they have a problem with the Captivate team and Captivate update release. In addition, my guess is (and I am pretty sure about this) there are some in this user forum that have close ties with Adobe management and could relay users concerns directly to them if they wanted to (or already have).

My guess is Adobe management already knows about the Captivate issues and has decided that how they are currently handling this situation is how they want to handle it. And that is certainly their prerogative. But if they have "chosen poorly" then Captivate won't become an "endangered" software species, it will become an "extinct" software species. Just like other Adobe products that have become extinct in the past.

Regarding traffic to my websites, over the last 10 years my Bagheera endangered species education website (www.Bagheera.com), has been visited over 2,541,000 times with over 5,300,000 page views according to Google Analytics. Bagheera is just one of a few endangered species websites I currently have up and running and am rebuiling (in part using Adobe Captivate).

But again, a few million unique visitors may not seem like a "significant" audience to Adobe and may not have value to them. However, my audience is their target audience and who know how those numbers could extrapolate if some of my visitors decided to promote Adobe Captivate if I was promoting it. 

But I am not going to worry about that since I will not be promoting Adobe Captivate in the future (as I have in the past). But I will be using Adobe Captivate to help me build excellent learning experiences that will attract more visitors to my website which will hopefully result in helping to save endangered species from extinction. 

And that is good enough for me.

[andrewg76970232]

I completly agree with what you have said. I've learned over the past 6 years of using Captivate that communication is terrible - especially when it comes to critical fixes and updates, promises being given and then continuosly broken, or just stopping all communication as they seem to have done with Charm.

If I acted this way at work, I'd be fired.

[Russ Lickteig]

I couldn't agree more with the frustrations mentioned here!  Waiting patiently is not a strong suit of mine.  I am having the same issue with Adobe Premiere.  They asked our opinion on a Captioning issue over a year ago and have had lots of people agree......but still nothing.  I'm still a bit confused about the Private Beta issue.  The entire world ( or anyone who cares to know ) knows about the new Captivate, and anyone who wants to join the Beta program can.  So how and why does this remain Private???  

[etm1000]

I think it's "private" in the sense that a small (specially invited) group is actually testing it out at this time, and they've been sworn to secrecy.  

Apparently there will at some point be a "public" beta, which probably anyone can do.

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and not get too upset about the lack of communication if it is just because they're making a serious effort to really improve the software, and they're finding more things to fix during the "private" beta than they had anticipated. 

[craig_kasnoff]

“Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.” Lord Alfred Tennyson

So you are in good company emt1000. 

(I had to look up "cleave" in order to make sense of it in this context.)

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

I like your style.

[craig_kasnoff]

Thanks Paul…

You probably don’t remember, but you were my classroom trainer in Las Vegas in 2019 when I was certified as an Adobe Captivate Specialist. What I remember about that training day is that you were both knowledgeable about the Captivate product and you were very attentive to the needs of the students in the class. The hearty round of applause and the positive comments you received at the end of the day certainly spoke to the training you delivered.

Between what I learned from you in that one-day seminar, and from what I have learned from your online videos since then, much of what I know about using Adobe Captivate I have learned from you.

As someone who is engaged in education, I want to let you know how much I appreciate both your skills and your efforts to educate people about Adobe Captivate. Your training has certainly helped countless individuals, many whom you have never met, on their journey to learn, and use Captivate to create meaningful e-learning training.

Your training has certainly influenced my ability to use Captivate in my effort to educate people about endangered species issues. In fact, I often referred to your videos when I was creating my master’s degree project which was a Captivate e-learning module focused on endangered species.

And yes, I received high marks for my project, so thank you for that.

I have no doubt I will continue to learn from you in the future, and that I will be turning to your training once the next version of Captivate is released.

So, again, thank you for your efforts to educate individuals in their journey to learn Adobe Captivate. I do hope you know it is appreciated.

Craig…

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

You're welcome, and I'm glad you've been successful with Adobe Captivate up until this point.

[etm1000]

The summit this year is going to have a "Project Charm test kitchen." I can't afford to go, but I guess that's going to be the only way one can do a beta test now.