How to Fix Navigation Issues in Storyline and Rise

Overview

This category covers whether a learner can actually get through the course. A broken external link, a slide with no way to move forward, or a Next button that's permanently disabled all have the same effect: they stop a learner in their tracks, sometimes without any obvious error message telling them what went wrong.

Step-by-step instructions

1. 1

   Click through every external link in the course and confirm it loads successfully, not just that it looks correct in the trigger or block settings.

2. 2

   For each slide, confirm there's a way to move forward, a working Next/Continue trigger, or a Rise block sequence that isn't broken partway through.

3. 3

   If a Next or Continue button appears disabled, check the trigger condition that enables it. A condition that references a variable or state that never gets set will leave the button permanently locked.

4. 4

   If a button is intentionally disabled until a learner completes an action first (like answering a question), confirm that's really the intended behavior, and not an accidental lock.

5. 5

   Check for two different buttons on the same slide with identical or near-identical labels ("Show" and "Show"), a learner tabbing through by label alone can't tell them apart. Make each label describe its specific action.

6. 6

   Test the course's actual navigation path end to end, not just each slide in isolation, some dead ends only show up when you follow the real sequence a learner would take.

Screenshots

Tips

• Test navigation from a cold start (as a first-time learner would experience it), not from partway through, since some triggers only fail on the very first pass.
• If a button is meant to stay disabled until a condition is met, add a visible hint telling the learner what they still need to do, don't leave them guessing why it isn't working.
• Broken links are easy to miss because they usually still look correct in the authoring tool, the URL only fails when a learner actually clicks it.

Common mistakes

• A trigger condition references a variable that's set on a different branch of the course than the one most learners actually take.
• An external link that worked at authoring time but has since moved or been taken down.
• Two navigation buttons on the same slide with the same generic label, "Show", "Next", "Continue" — with no way to tell them apart by ear or by name.