Agent: Animated figure that presents the instruction text. The agent’s gestures point to screen elements that are important for the user interaction (for example, input fields, pushbuttons).

Task: Work unit consisting of a number of individual steps. The author defines the task by combining a number of recorded steps into a task and creating a task description in the Editor, if required.

Symbol in the Editor:

Author: Person who creates an interactive tutorial.

Description: Additional explanation that the author can create for steps and tasks.

Screenshot: The Recorder records two screenshots for each step: one before and one after performing an interaction. The author can specify which of the two screenshots is displayed in the Player.

Attention area: Frame in the tutorial that points out important screen areas. Attention areas appear in the Editor as an empty frame.

Interaction: Any kind of action by the tutorial user, such as mouse click on a pushbutton, text input, double-click, or menu navigation.

Symbol in the Editor:

Interaction area: Frame in the tutorial that shows the tutorial user where an interaction should be executed on the screenshot. An interaction area appears in the Editor as a frame with shaded contents.

Lesson: Tutorial or part of a tutorial for learning, training, or presentation purposes (in contrast to an assessment).

Learner: User of an interactive tutorial.

Multi-interaction step: Step in which the user can perform multiple, possibly alternative, interactions on one screenshot. There are thus multiple interaction areas on the screen. The author can edit the multi-interaction step and the individual interactions in the Editor. For the learner, the multi-interaction step looks the same optically as the other steps in the Steps in the Tutorial window of the Player. However, he or she sees multiple interaction areas on the screen.

Symbol in the Editor:

Step: Interaction between the author and the application to be recorded resulting in the screenshot being recorded, for example, mouse-click on a pushbutton. The Recorder generates an interaction area and a bubble text for each step.

The learner must execute exactly this step when using the tutorial.

The application environment is simulated in the Player and the learner can reproduce the interaction of the author. The result of the interaction is that the next step of the tutorial appears.

Speech bubble: Contains information and instructions for the learner. The Recorder automatically creates the instruction in the bubble text during recording and the author can modify this instruction.

Bookmark: You can use the bookmark to jump from one step to another. The learner then continues to play the tutorial from this location.

Assessment: Tutorial or part of a tutorial that is played in test mode and used to check the effectiveness of the learning.

Tutorial: Electronic self-learning unit with the file name extension *.sim.

Root task: Task in which all the steps of a tutorial are combined during recording.