Only used it few times and did not like the initial results but that may be due to the content  I used to try it out...it was pretty basic. That said, I agree that it’s a little cost prohibitive when you can buy a full-fledged tool like Articulate and use it for years for 1 time cost. I found the AI suggestions were not that great but am assuming this would improve over time.

Hey @Stephanie Dreiling! I work on Shape and would love the chance to hear more feedback on the product and pricing. If you’re up for it feel free to send me a message! 

@Stephanie Dreiling I’ve been playing around in Shape too and was blown away by what it can do. It’s clearly a v1 and I am assuming that since it’s using Artificial Intelligence it will keep getting better at matching text and imagery/video and that Docebo will continue to enhance the feature set. I didn’t reach out to my rep and was the afraid price was going to be cost-prohibitive for us . We’re using Articulate Storyline and mostly Rise but it would be great for us to be able to create Shape vignettes as another kind of engaging content within a Rise course. I’ve also been using Visme which is similar to Canva but I like it a little better. It’s super easy to use, affordable, and since we lack extensive design skills (as in I lack design skills) and I am a one person shop (as in only me), Visme has made it easier for me to create some good looking content.

I too look forward to more convo and consideration around Shape and pricing. We’re a small nonprofit and many of Docebo’s offerings are unfortunately out of our price range.

Thank you Cindy! I will look into Visme, I haven’t tried that one yet! And can totally relate we are a Not-for-Profit and already spend quite a bit of my budget on Docebo and Coach & Share, so was excited about the integration but the cost was crazy to me! I assume they are charging so much for the AI but in my testing it wasn’t working well at all and I would buy the program without it and just manually create content!

You got it! Happy to chat!

I have played with it, as well as others on my team.  While I do think that it is a great tool and will speed up the design process for some quick turn around training, I also found that the AI didn’t quite work as well as I’d hoped when it came to picture selection.  It seems it’s great for shorter PDF’s or documents that it doesn’t need to pull a ton of information from.  Otherwise, I find myself having to go back and add in content it skipped over.  BUT, even with that, edits are quick and easy to make.  I still think it gives you a very strong head start as opposed to developing directly in another authoring tool like Captivate.

I really like the idea of it, and I think it would potentially be a great tool.  I’m honestly on the fence on whether or not it’s a good investment for us.  

I was also informed that it is not SCORM compliant, but instead TinCan.  Which, is fine, as long as you don’t need specific reporting.  

It is a very exciting product development to me, and I hope to see continued improvements in the future! 

We’ve been playing with it too, I like the overall format but I’m having a few issues with the focus that it puts on pictures.  That means that you can’t use screenshots because it crops them down and you miss out parts of the image.

We’ve not heard back from our rep yet on pricing, so it was really interesting to hear you say it was expensive.  We currently use Articulate Storyline to make SCORM and clipchamp https://clipchamp.com/en/ or Camtasia to make video content.

This is all great feedback! Thanks @Stephanie Dreiling for starting the conversation. 

As someone who works in content development, I was really excited to start working with Shape. It really works like magic, and is so easy to use (I even showed it to my 8-year old son, who loves it!).  It’s a content development tool for people who don’t need any kind of content development background to use it successfully (although it doesn’t hurt to have that training!).   

I’ve kept a couple considerations in mind as I’ve gotten more familiar with the product. 

First, as @Cindy McElhinney notes, it’s a v1 product, and it will evolve over time. I’m really excited to see where our product development team takes it! 

Second, I think it works best for specific use cases. In particular, organizations with limited content creation resources (software and personnel), lots of two-dimensional content (like files and documents) that don’t always get engagement, and healthy social/informal knowledge flows (especially in Coach & Share use cases) could really benefit from access to Shape. But I imagine there are other uses I haven’t even thought of where it can be game-changing.

Third, at this stage in DU, I find it functions as a supplement rather than a substitute for content authoring tools. For some jobs, you’ll still use Articulate or Captivate or Clipchamp; for others (especially ones that require fast conversion and digestible microlearning outputs), Shape will do the job.

Very interested to hear from everyone how you’d use Shape for your use cases!

I’ve loved seeing everyone’s feedback and perspective on Shape in this thread. Thank you all for sharing!

I can relate to many of the thoughts/reactions shared here. I was fortunate enough to get beta access to Shape when I was still a Docebo customer and was blown away by what it could do. I still remember the demo at Inspire 2019 and looking around the room thinking “whoa, is this the future?”

 @SuperShaune and I talked about Shape in the How to Build Social Learning Content in Minutes webinar last week. I encourage you to check out the recording if you missed it! @Cindy McElhinney @Stephanie Dreiling @agilleland @joanna.lay – you all might find the conversation at around 3:10 interesting as Shaune and I discuss Shape compared to other authoring tools, including a few that you all mentioned.

Here are some of my own thoughts on the tool:

What are some use cases for Shape?

Shaune and I talk about a few use cases for Shape in the webinar, so I encourage you to check it out. One of my favorite ideas is to use Shape to create “promo content” for your courses. It’s important to give learners a preview of your content before they dive in and Shape is a perfect tool to create a quick and engaging preview of your course content in minutes. Shaune even shared the brilliant idea of embedding a Shape into a Newsletter (and showed us what it would look like).

What tool (if any) can Shape replace?

Of the tools I’ve seen mentioned in this thread, I believe Shape could best replace Captivate (though I’m open to being challenged on that). In the case of other tools, I believe it would be best used as a complementary product, or for a new segment of users at your organization who have no instructional design experience.

Where Shape really shines (in my opinion)

Like @ryan.woods mentioned in his post, I see Shape as being a tool primarily to help organizations who are looking to put the power of content creation directly into the hands of subject matter experts who might not have the time or skills to use authoring tools like Rise, Elucidat, etc. It’s best used to create microlearning social content. As Shaune puts it, it’s great for creating “quick little activity bursts” that are 60-120 seconds and cover a limited number of learning objectives.

Where Shape shouldn’t be used (in my opinion)

My team creates a lot of content focused on product training. Articulate Rise is a perfect tool for us because it allows us to build long-form content that covers a number of learning objectives and allows us to easily include multimedia like images and videos of our product alongside step-by-step instructions and informational text. I have yet to see an example of a Shape that tackles this sort of use case well (but I look forward to being surprised by someone somewhere!) In this product training example, Shape could best be used to create an introduction or promotion to a course, or as a summary/takeaway snippet that we present following the primary course content. It wouldn’t work well as the primary method of delivering functional step-by-step product content.

Let’s keep the comments rolling here! We would love to hear more thoughts and feedback on Shape from our customers.

I have not used Shape yet, but saw the demo and thought it was really neat! That being said, we currently use Camtasia, along with Powtoon, Vidyard, Articulate, and Canva. I love all of them, but am looking to consolidate at some point. We are currently working on realignment of tools, but will be keeping Camtasia and Articulate for sure! 

Using Shape - Experience to date

It is a cool tool for producing quick, engaging, simple communication.

The AI

This tool has enormous potential to summarise and extract key concepts, but results are hit and miss right now.  The capability to match images and video also has promise because if well-done speeds workflow and the impact of communication.  However, this function is not yet ready for prime time because, like most users, we expect close to perfection from day one.

Of all the capabilities of SHAPE AI, it has the most potential to add value, especially if it learns from users.  For example, seeing how expert users edit the first cut of a SHAPE creation.  

In summary, I got a great result from key concept extraction from a specialist website with some good image results. Unfortunately, in other cases, the results needed to be rebuilt manually.  If Docebo can provide a great AI assistant to the creation process, that would be a game-changer.  I am using Grammarly to help improve my writing and love (mostly) how it makes suggestions to help me achieve that outcome. 

Know your Customer (Pricing)

There are cheap apps that do the same thing as SHAPE (without the AI), so if Docebo is looking to charge very high licence fees, your uptake might be limited. On the other hand, many content creators work with Docebo products but are not licence holders, so high costs would also be a barrier to purchase.

An alternative to SHAPE without AI is the latest version of Powerpoint that looks like it can do many of the things possible in your app. However, for people who have and are video editors, SHAPE is probably pretty limited.

Then, people like me see real value in a speedy, straightforward tool and can turn communication or simple learning snippets around very quickly.  SHAPE looks like it can be such a tool as long as the price is right.  An example of an app that fits into this space is Doodly, and in tandem with SHAPE would be a potent combination.

The impact of a SHAPE outside the learning community

I have built some SHAPES and shared them with companies with complex stories to tell, websites that are mostly text-based and are therefore very painful to use.  A SHAPE is a fast, engaging way of adding simple communication to an existing website without rebuilding the website from the ground up.

Would I recommend SHAPE?

Yes, and I have if the price is right.

@Stephanie Dreiling - I gave Shape a try and work in the Healthcare space.

I dont know - I do come back to some of the conclusions said above - tons of potential and clearly a v.1 for a product.

I hope I am not blowing community guidelines? But in my opinion? A rough equivalent to Shape as a content development tool based on its rapid layouts and choices are the Adobe Spark tools. I have made a few Spark Videos to intrigue an audience...I built one out that was so good that no joke?

I almost could have done a microphone drop because it did act as a promo of sorts that covered key accomplishments for a team for a year. It took me about an hour to rapidly build a prototype on the way to work with the mobile app.

Adobe Spark and its suite of products has been out for years and has been getting refined. It has transitioned from being once just a mobile app to a suite of mobile apps to a full blown web app and partnered with the other apps to give more of a “studio” approach.

I would say the   key differentiator? Is how one can leverage the Shape AI.

Adobe Spark’s blend of apps allows you to pull and work with tons of templated content...it has an amazing randomizer..a way to hold onto your custom brand (or brands)...and literally tons of CC (creative commons) types of content icons and images.

The only downside - even though it has a reasonably cheap path, Adobe’s subscription model may be cost prohibitive unless you really get a use out of the platform.

I am coming to the table late...but I figure sharing is still caring. 

#idonotworkforadobe

 

What tool (if any) can Shape replace?

Of the tools I’ve seen mentioned in this thread, I believe Shape could best replace Captivate (though I’m open to being challenged on that). In the case of other tools, I believe it would be best used as a complementary product, or for a new segment of users at your organization who have no instructional design experience.

I will start by admitting I’ve never used Shape or even seen a bonafide demo of it but have been an avid user and advocate for Adobe Captivate for many years. I am curious now to hear more of your thoughts on this. It is rare that I come across something that I am unable to accomplish with Captivate - at least for any of my past or current needs - thus making it a challenge to replace. It is that flexibility that I appreciate most. 

When exploring Shape, I started by bringing in existing documents as the foundation for a course (Word, PPT, PDF). In each case, I was surprised by how little of the text in my original document made it into the resulting Shape product, no matter which size I chose.

My takeaways to date are:

• Only a subset of the data in your original text will be included in the Shape.
• The included text will be generally appear in the Shape in the same order that it appears in your original doc.
• Because of edits, sometimes the sense of your original text is lost or changed.
• The images are not compelling, but can be edited.
• The Large version of the Shape will have more slides than the Medium version, but they’re largely the same.
• There are only two voices available for voiceover (1 male, one female). The male voice isn’t bad but the female voice is very robotic. You do have the option of recording your own voice and you can edit what text is in the voiceover. 

I see that I can also start a Shape from scratch, which seems basic (you can bring in your own audio, video, and other resources) but it’s not as functional as Rise 360. We might use it for short advertisements or microlearning. It’s not suited for step by step guidance, since it leaves out steps.

Also, it’s very hard to find anything in the Community about Shape. Perhaps the info can be better grouped or promoted?