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🎓 Lesson 7: Interactive Blocks — Labeled Graphics, Sorting, Flashcards, Accordions, Tabs & Timelines

This is the block category that makes people say "wait, I built that?" Interactive blocks turn passive reading into active clicking, tapping, and exploring — and Rise makes them point-and-fill-in easy. In this lesson you'll meet each one, learn the use case it was born for, and — just as important — learn to use them purposefully instead of sprinkling them everywhere.

📚 What You'll Learn

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Name Rise's interactive blocks and describe what each one does
  • Match a block to its ideal use case (explore, sequence, compare, practice)
  • Build a Labeled Graphic, Tabs, and a Flashcard Grid
  • Explain why interactivity boosts engagement — and when it becomes clutter

⏱️ Estimated Time: 50 minutes

🎯 Project: Add a Labeled Graphic (or Tabs) plus a Flashcard Grid to a lesson in your practice course.

In This Lesson

Why Interactivity (and When Not To)

Interaction works because it demands a tiny act of participation. Clicking a tab, dragging a card, or exploring a hotspot flips the learner from spectator to participant — and participation is what turns "I saw it" into "I remember it." Interactive blocks also compress content beautifully: six tabs hold what would be six screens of scrolling.

🧠 Mindset

New authors often over-correct: they discover interactions and stuff every lesson full of them. But an interaction the learner clicks through mindlessly is just extra work with no payoff. The question is never "can I make this interactive?" — it's "does interacting help this person learn?" One well-chosen interaction beats five decorative ones. You'll develop this judgment fast.

Here's the honest rule: reach for an interactive block when it does one of four jobs — let the learner explore something, compare options side by side, follow a sequence, or practice a decision. If it's not doing one of those, a plain content block is probably clearer. We'll organize all the blocks around exactly those jobs in §5.

Reveal & Compare: Accordion, Tabs, Flashcards

These three all work by hiding content until the learner asks for it — which keeps a lesson tidy and puts the learner in control of pace.

Accordion — a vertical list of headers that expand to reveal content when clicked. Ideal for FAQs, a set of policies, or any "here are eight things, read the ones you need" situation.

Tabs — horizontal tabs that swap content in a single space. Perfect for comparing parallel options — three product tiers, the "before / during / after" of a process, or Prevent / Detect / Respond.

Flashcard Grid — a grid of cards that flip to reveal an answer or detail. Made for term-and-definition practice, quick self-quizzing, or "guess, then check" moments.

Figure 1 — Tabs and a Flashcard Grid (a simplified mock-up, not a real screenshot): both hide content until the learner clicks, keeping the lesson compact.

Explore & Sequence: Labeled Graphic, Process, Timeline

These blocks are about spatial and ordered relationships — where things are, and in what order they happen.

Labeled Graphic — you place clickable markers (hotspots) on an image; clicking a marker reveals a label with text and media. This is Rise's signature "explore an image" interaction: the parts of a machine, points on a map, the fields of a form, anatomy, a dashboard. It rewards curiosity and works beautifully on touchscreens.

Process — a step-by-step interaction where the learner advances through numbered stages, one at a time. Great for a procedure or a lifecycle where order matters and you want focus on one step at a moment.

Timeline — content arranged along a chronological track: a project history, a sequence of events, a "day in the life." It makes time itself the organizing idea.

Figure 2 — A Labeled Graphic and a Process block (a simplified mock-up, not a real screenshot): one for exploring an image, one for stepping through a sequence.

💡 Labeled Graphic is the crowd favorite: If you only master one interactive block first, make it this one. It's endlessly reusable, immediately impressive, and turns any diagram or photo into an exploration.

Practice & Navigate: Sorting, Buttons

Sorting Activity — the learner drags items into categories (correct / incorrect, by type, by priority) and gets feedback. It's low-stakes practice that makes a learner commit to a decision — far stickier than reading the right answer. Think "sort these expenses into approved vs. not," or "which of these are phishing signs?"

Button and Button Stack — one or several styled buttons. A single Button is great for a call to action or a link; a Button Stack presents a set of choices or navigation options. These are the simplest interactive blocks and pair naturally with the Scenario block you'll meet in Lesson 8.

📖 A note on Rise vs. Storyline interactivity

Rise's interactions are pre-built and configurable — you fill in content, and Rise handles the behavior and the responsive layout. That's the trade: enormous speed, limited customization. When you need an interaction Rise doesn't offer — a custom drag-and-drop, a branching game, a software simulation — that's Storyline's job (Part 3), and you can even embed a Storyline block right inside a Rise lesson.

Grouping Interactions by Purpose

Don't memorize the blocks one by one. Memorize the four jobs, and the right block will suggest itself. Here's the whole set, organized by what the learner is doing:

graph TD A["🎯 What should the
learner DO?"] --> B["🔍 Explore"] A --> C["➡️ Sequence"] A --> D["⚖️ Compare"] A --> E["✋ Practice"] B --> B1["Labeled Graphic"] B --> B2["Accordion"] C --> C1["Process"] C --> C2["Timeline"] D --> D1["Tabs"] D --> D2["Flashcard Grid"] E --> E1["Sorting Activity"] E --> E2["Buttons / Button Stack"] style A fill:#fed7aa,color:#1e293b style B fill:#bfdbfe,color:#1e293b style C fill:#c7d2fe,color:#1e293b style D fill:#fde68a,color:#1e293b style E fill:#bbf7d0,color:#1e293b style B1 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style B2 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style C1 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style C2 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style D1 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style D2 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style E1 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b style E2 fill:#f1f5f9,color:#1e293b

Figure 3 — Rise's interactive blocks grouped by the job they do for the learner: explore, sequence, compare, or practice.

✅ The purpose test

Before you add an interactive block, finish this sentence: "I'm using this so the learner can ______." If you can fill the blank with explore, sequence, compare, or practice — go for it. If you can't, a content block will serve you better.

🎯 Try It: Add Two Interactions

🏋️ Activity: Make a lesson interactive

Objective: Add a Labeled Graphic (or Tabs) and a Flashcard Grid to your practice course — each chosen for a real purpose. Trial / Paid

Steps

  1. Open a lesson in your practice course and insert a Labeled Graphic block; add an image and place at least three markers with a label each. (No good image? Use Tabs with three tabs instead.) (⏱️ 12 min)
  2. For each marker/tab, write a short, useful label — this is where your Lesson 6 writing skills pay off. (⏱️ 6 min)
  3. Insert a Flashcard Grid block and create at least four cards (term on front, definition on back). (⏱️ 8 min)
  4. For each interaction, write down (in your journal) which of the four jobs it's doing. (⏱️ 2 min)
  5. Preview on desktop and mobile — tap through the markers/tabs and flip the cards. (⏱️ 4 min)
💡 Hint

For a Labeled Graphic, a clear, uncluttered image works best — a diagram, a labeled photo, or a simple scene. Place markers where a curious learner would want to click. If a card's "back" is more than a couple of sentences, it probably belongs in an Accordion instead.

✅ Activity Complete When…

  • Your lesson has a Labeled Graphic (or Tabs) with at least three markers/tabs, each labeled
  • It has a Flashcard Grid with at least four cards
  • You can name the "job" (explore / sequence / compare / practice) each interaction does
  • Both interactions work when previewed on mobile

🎯 Quick Quiz

Question 1: You want learners to click points on a photo of a control panel to learn what each part does. Which block fits best?

Question 2: What's the best test for whether to add an interactive block?

📓 Learning Journal

Keep your Learning Journal going — a note in your favorite app, a doc, or a paper notebook. After each lesson, jot down:

  • Key concepts you learned
  • Things that clicked for you
  • Questions or confusion points to revisit
  • Ideas you want to try
  • Your progress and how you feel about learning this

✍️ This lesson's prompt: For your capstone topic, name one thing learners should explore, one thing they should compare, and one thing they should practice. Which interactive block fits each? Note any block you're tempted to overuse.

📝 Lesson Summary

🎓 Key Takeaways

  • Rise's interactive blocks — Accordion, Tabs, Labeled Graphic, Process, Timeline, Flashcard Grid, Sorting Activity, Button/Button Stack — turn reading into doing.
  • Group them by the learner's job: explore, sequence, compare, practice.
  • Interactivity boosts engagement and compresses content — but only when it serves learning; one purposeful interaction beats five decorative ones.
  • Rise interactions are fast and configurable; for fully custom interactions you'll use Storyline (Part 3), embeddable inside a Rise lesson.

🎉 What You've Accomplished

You built real interactions — the kind that make a course feel modern and engaging — and, more importantly, you now choose them on purpose. That judgment is what separates a course that's busy from a course that's effective. Your practice course is starting to look like the real thing.

❓ Common Questions at This Stage

Do Rise interactions work on phones and tablets?

Yes — they're responsive and touch-friendly by default. Tabs, flashcards, labeled graphics, and the rest all adapt to the screen. Always preview on mobile to confirm your specific content fits comfortably.

How much can I customize how an interaction looks?

Rise keeps styling largely automatic — you control the content and some display options, and the theme controls the colors and fonts. That limited control is the price of Rise's speed and guaranteed polish. For pixel-level custom interactions, that's Storyline's territory.

Is a Knowledge Check the same as these interactive blocks?

Not quite. Knowledge Checks are ungraded practice questions (and graded quizzes are their own thing). The blocks in this lesson are content interactions. We cover Knowledge Checks and scenarios next, in Lesson 8.

🔭 Looking Ahead

In Lesson 8, you'll build decision-making practice: the Scenario block's block-based branching, plus ungraded Knowledge Checks — and learn to write feedback that actually teaches.

✅ Before the Next Lesson

  • Keep your interactive lesson — you'll add a scenario and a knowledge check to your course
  • Preview your interactions on a real phone if you can
  • Write this lesson's journal prompt

📚 Additional Resources

🌟 Encouragement for the Journey

Remember how these interactions looked intimidating when you took a course as a learner? You just built them — and you did it with taste, choosing each for a reason. That combination of skill and judgment is exactly what makes a great e-learning author. Keep going.