One of the things I touched on briefly in my workshop session at the Articulate Roadshow was the idea of using lightbox slides to reduce cognitive load in your course. Building lightbox slides for certain items can reduce cognitive load and focus the learner on the meat of the content rather than forcing them to click through slides on how to navigate the course.
The function of the lightbox slide is to be hidden until it is opened, and then closed (or hidden) when it is no longer needed. Let’s look at a few examples of using lightbox slides to reduce cognitive load. First, here is the simple lightbox slide I created for the Roadshow workshop that depicts five common lightbox options.
Course Navigation
Yes, I know there is the argument that it is 2018. Do we really need to tell people how to navigate an e-learning course? And for the most part I agree that it shouldn’t be needed. However, I’ve often built this type of slide to explain the functionality of a course (glossary, contact info, resources, information about course assets such as videos, and yes, how to navigate). Think about the fact that there might be a user that needs assistance. If that slide helps one user, it’s worth being built. Unfortunately, there is also another argument for building this type of slide – someone higher up than you is mandating it’s inclusion. Regardless of the reason, if you are building a course navigation or functionality area, the lightbox slide is a great option. Putting this ancillary information on a lightbox slide pulls it out of the main flow of the course and recognizes that not everyone will need it, but it’s there for those who do.
References
Depending on your industry, you may be required to include a references or works cited slide in a particular course. I’ve found this to be true in two sectors I’ve worked in – healthcare and statistical software training. You could make this the last or penultimate slide of the course. But again, not everyone will need (or want) to access this information. In my opinion, this information is perfect for a lightbox slide. It’s there if someone wants to investigate further, but again, it’s not crucial to the main flow of the course.
Glossary
Say you want to build a custom glossary for a course. A glossary is a reference tool that is used when needed. In other words, it is an ideal candidate to put on a lightbox slide. It’s default state is hidden, but it’s always a click away when you can’t remember the definition of a particular term.
Building lightbox slides for these types of ancillary content reduces cognitive load and puts more control in the learner’s hands. The learner can access this material at the time of need, rather than being forced to view it to complete the course. What do you think? What are some other ways to use lightbox slides to reduce cognitive load?
When Joshua first shared his nested menu, I really liked what he built. In fact, I modified his design and built a 
Next, I found a background picture from Content Library. Rather than use layers for color changes, I added six states to the background image, one for each color. On each state I added a rectangle overlay for that particular color and changed the transparency to 75%.
Next, I added the following triggers to each check hotspot. The first trigger toggles the Checkbox trigger between True and False. The default value is False. If the learner clicks a check, the variable changes to True and the second trigger takes affect, changing the check from grey to green. If the learner clicks the check again, the third trigger changes Checkmark back to False and the color of the check changes back to grey. Each check hotspot has these three triggers, so the learner can select as many or few of these as desired. The check marks serve as a type of review for the learner. Have I done these things or not? These do not persist to the following slide.
Next, I added triggers to each star hotspot. The first three triggers are the same as those I created for the check hotspots – a toggle that changes the value of the variable, and triggers that change the state of the stars between Normal and Selected. Again, the learner can select as many or as few as they want. But, I only want them to select three stars. So I added another variable, Total, to keep count of how many stars are selected, and two additional triggers that either add 1.00 to Total if True (selected) or subtract 1.00 from Total if False (not selected). The Total variable is a numeric variable with a default value of 0.
Finally, I add two triggers to the Next button. I add a layer to the slide as a 
For slide 2, I copied the 8 strategy text boxes and the 8 stars. I removed the Selected state from each star and added a Disabled state. I set the initial state for each star to Hidden. I also added a Chosen state to each text box with a dark rectangle to better highlight which strategy is chosen.
For each star I added a trigger that changes the state of the star to Disabled if the associated variable is equal to True. Variables persist throughout a course, so when you select your three stars on the previous slide, the variables associated with those stars changed to True.
I also added a trigger that changes the state of the strategy text to Chosen if the associated star variable is True.
For this I added a 3-tab interaction to the slide. Each tab displays a layer. Each layer has a text entry box for learners to type their plan. When the learner is done entering their plans, they click Submit. Their entries are stored and displayed in a review slide at the end of the course via a reference variable (e.g., %plan1%).
