Articulate 360 vs. iSpring Suite

I am not a fully trained instructional designer, but I found the user experience to be enjoyable. I have crafted my own revision of a course using Articulate 360 and while the process was lengthy, I found edits and changes to be relatively easy to implement. I also had a great deal of fun making tweaks, organizing and adding imagery. I think with regard to creating online courses/products for students to utilize, this is a great program and serves several levels of instructional design well (from me being brand new to this, to my supervisor who is newly certified, up to a longtime LD). I don't know that this is wholly relevant to courses that are live, be they in-person or virtual (Zoom webinars for example). Most of the material created in Articulate 360 tends to sit on the side of an on-demand, at-your-own-pace as far as coursework is concerned. A live course with an instructor, while it could be utilized in a live setting, the way it would be used I am unsure would be as dynamic or worthwhile as other more traditional options.

This is one of the best authoring tools in the market. As a strong user of most of them, we ran across iSpring Suite years ago when the product was still evolving. Who would have thought that having these tools embedded inside PowerPoint would make such an impact? There is nothing I can't do with iSpring Suite that others claim is unique to their authoring products, and some things that I can do even better.

• Rise is clean and professional. It looks polished to users and is easy for learners to follow.
• They have outstanding support.
• Storyline allows you to create some very engaging intricate interactive learning.
• Generally, their products are user friendly.
• They are considered the Gold standard in elearning authoring.
• Their courses can be read on phones, tablets computers. etc.
• They also have a powerpoint add in for making really nice slides.
• Their review tool, allows you to easily send the courses to reviewers who can update in course.

Incentivized

• iSpring integrates with PowerPoint extremely well and enables the user to develop training in PowerPoint with ease.
• iSpring characters are fantastic. They continue to add more regularly features regularly.
• The voice recording and ability to integrate music is a very easy process.
• Customer service is fantastic. They are quick to respond and their training is easy to follow.

Incentivized

• I'd like to see more variety in the types of interactions available. The ones that exist now (hot spot, drag n' drop, flip cards, etc.) are useful, but it would be nice to have more options without having to build something custom in Storyline to pull over. For example, I'd like a more elaborate sorting activity, customizable drag and drop activity, game options such as crosswords, options that allow user response, and more variety in the quizzing and assessment.
• The built-in branching scenario feature requires a bit of trial and error. I'd like to see a snapshot, at-a-glance view of the scenario so it easier to see where the branching is, or where its missing.
• The built-in assessment features are pretty limited - the Knowledge Check block has only multiple choice, multiple response, fill in the blank and basic matching. There is the option to pull in a test bank which is great, but it would be great to have more options built-in without having to develop something more elaborate in Storyline.

Incentivized

• Adding audio narration to interactive slides is easy, but still perhaps a bit repetitive/clunky
• The way you add playlists works well, but wish it was "project/course specific", instead of carrying over from project to project. Easy to delete playlists, tho.
• If you have a common set of learner resources to make available over many courses, you must manually add the URLs and/or PDFs manually each time. Would be so nice to be able to create a "reference list" and import it to each course with a click or two. This is the most annoying thing I can think of about iSpring.

Articulate 360 is an essential tool in our organisation's workflow. The money that we make through its use, far outweighs the cost of renewing our licenses. Articulate 360 has exposed us to new clients that we may not have otherwise encountered if we did not subscribe to the Articulate services.

I would give it 10 but I also like to try new solutions.

I rate the overall usability of Articulate 360 ​​with an 8, because of the many possibilities the software offers me. The software ensures that almost anyone without knowledge of coding can develop an interactive online course in a fairly simple and pleasant way.

The software integration was appealing to our department--particularly to the faculty who had not, prior to the pandemic, taught online--because it integrates with an already known entity: PowerPoint. Furthermore, iSpring's assessment builder with its wide variety of questions is extremely easy to use--basically plug and play--for any level of comfort that a faculty member has in terms of online teaching.

Incentivized

It took forever to get someone to respond--either by email or by phone--directly to a pricing and licensing question. It is unfortunate that a company that has such potential as a streamlined course building/authoring tool not only missed the boat with service but also proves itself to be all fluff and no substance.

Incentivized

I had a difficult issue where iSpring just stopped working. It turned out to be a Microsoft Windows/Office issue. The iSpring Support team continued to contact me until we got the issue resolved. A support team that does not wait for the customer to call back is EXCEPTIONAL. I can not think of any other vendor that was this devoted to finding a solution! My compliments to "Dana" and the rest of the iSpring support teasm!

It is pretty straight forward and easy to implement is you are already creating eLearning. If you have old courses created in other versions of Articulate I recommend you update them to the new version even though it is not necessary (especially From Storyline3 to 360) but if you don't you may find difficulty opening and keeping things straight

Incentivized

Adobe Captivate has a ton of incredible functionality. You're able to fully customize user experiences through interactive elements, buttons, transitions, hiding and activating various elements, and so on. But overall Captivate is insanely difficult for someone new to the tool to learn. Most of what I learned about Captivate, I had to do by trial and error or by watching Paul Wilson's YouTube videos. I find Articulate 360 to be far more intuitive

Incentivized

Therer are several other interactive video creation tools out there, such as Camtasia, Adobe Captivate and even PowerPoint on its own, but none of them come close to offering the galaxy of features that is served up by iSpring Suite, and it's the easiest to learn and use with affordable price tags

• I am an independent user so far so no ROI; however it has clearly made a positive impact on my course as my students love the clear navigation interface and know exactly where to find content.
• On point to consider is that it has no forum option on its lesson option so this hinders some asynchronous users from interacting with others on the course.
• Users have expressed many positive feedback from using Articulate 360 which increases productivity and engagement.

Incentivized

• We allow potential customers to sample training and feedback is our offerings differentiate us from our peers.
• Having the ability to offer an accessible training catalog and self-enrollment is also something our customers comment on positively.
• The training developed in iSpring has allowed our customers to prepare for further interaction with our processes and projects on their own timeline, and has positively impacted the ease with which we are able to execute project rollouts.