Hamada asked: "...what would a compelling reason to build a responsive project be?"
I ask myself that question a lot and I struggle to come up with a really good answer.
In the world of responsive WEBSITES there is good data to back up the allegation that a larger and larger percentage of people are attempting to view the content via cell phones, and when they do, they're almost always going to be doing it in Portrait mode. Since there's money to be made or lost when people can or cannot view your content, web designers are more and more driven to accommodate an audience that will be viewing their content this way. That's why you are seeing a lot of websites nowadays with 'mobile-friendly" layouts that feature rather huge heading texts and single graphics with a bunch of text to one side or the other. These websites bootstrap or foundation JS to dynamically alter the font CSS styling to look acceptable in all types of viewport sizes. And they have the graphic wrap to be above or underneath the text when viewed in portrait mode on a cell phone. It's a relatively simple formula. But they're NOT trying to move things around on the screen and they're NOT trying to synchronise audio voiceover and Closed Captioning with it. (If they do, they use straight video instead of animation.)
It's these responsive WEBSITES that Captivate's responsive output is taking as a concept model for E-LEARNING. But my intuition tells me that these two content genres are VERY different, and there are in fact VERY FEW people trying to access typical e-learning courses on a mobile phone even now. A great deal of courseware is simply NOT going to look good or be readable and deliver good instruction at such a small size. (Can you imagine trying to learn Photoshop on a mobile phone?) For most e-learning content the audience will want to be using an iPad/Android tablet at least, and that tablet will most likely be in Landscape mode, not portrait. But my gut is telling me that the desktop browser experience is still by far the best platform for delivery of good e-learning content and there would be VERY few people that can ONLY view it on a mobile phone and do not have a tablet or computer as an alternative way to view the learning.
So I come to the conclusion that for software training (simulations etc) I would NEVER recommend building a responsive project. The screenshots would be unreadable at most sizes. You COULD potentially see soft-skills training working for responsive, but I would be recommending to clients that they building it only for tablet screens and up. Since most tablets are running resolutions of at least 1024 pixels wide or more, their resolution is not that much different to desktops. So why use responsive, when you can just build the same course for both?
And the REAL killer is COST. Since each different viewport you build for with responsive projects adds another layer of time and cost to your development budget, your client would need to see proof that going to all the time and expense of building for cell phones was going to pay back. Quite frankly, in the current economy, where training budgets are being cut, not expanded, I don't see many clients that are SO wedded to the idea of mobile learning that they are willing to double or treble the development budget JUST to be able to brag about how the screen changes from desktop to tablet to cell phone.
But your mileage may vary...
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