A woman in our department has been researching video for our help systems. People have been excited, but until yesterday, I must admit I wasn’t sure why. I attended a webinar about screencasts and read about how video might be a watershed skill for our industry, but the only reason I had gleaned was that YouTube is really, really popular.
I rarely watch video online. Unless it’s a funny meme I have deliberately searched for, or a show that I missed, or Netflix, I won’t press play. If a blog post is all video, I skip it. I rarely appreciate video instructions, either–they take too long, because I’m pausing, following the step, playing, pausing again. I was having trouble imagining how videos were going to improve our help systems or fit into our schedules.
Then came the product presentations. Our manager assigned us each a presentation about one of the products we document. The idea was we would learn more about our systems and how they integrated with each other. This assignment, and the results (if our training survey
is an indicator) were not joy and enlightenment. More like dread and boredom.
The writer who is researching video for us, Stacey Fiedler, does not do public speaking, or attention, or presentations. I gave her the option of leaving her name out of this post, which I’m glad she didn’t take me up on, because what she did to get around the public speaking part of the assignment was so good that she deserves major credit. She made a screencast. A badass, totally well-done screencast that I’m pretty sure everyone wished they had thought of. I wish I could show it to you here but the content is proprietary. Plus Stacey would not appreciate it.
We arrived for the presentation and Stacey pressed play. The video explained all the functionality of her product to us, at a high level, without her having to talk. And we liked it. I would have watched it again. I can’t say that about any of the other presentations, and I don’t think anyone would say it of mine. I’m embarrassed to say that my standard of watchability for my presentation was, “I don’t think anyone will lose their mind from boredom. I hope.” Like, at the most.
Another great thing: this product has historically had a bit of an image problem about being hard to use, and Stacey’s video made the product look easy. I laughed, I oohed and aahed at the graphics. I was enjoying the music and the smooth mousework, and I swear to God, I pictured myself clicking around competently in the product experiencing the same feelings I had while watching the video. What I mean is, the video evoked the feeling I get when I’m getting good work done to good music. I wanted to use the product. Hello? Major tech comm goal.
Another achievement: if I opened a help system and it had that video, I would immediately open every other help system in every other product I owned by that company. When I hear all the time, “ha, well no one is going to read this, anyway,” that is a big deal. That is key.
Okay, so obviously Stacey worked very hard on the video, and put a ton of thought into it, and the process was time consuming. She ended up with a video that–if the audio was redone with songs we had permission for– our sales manager should be proud to show prospective clients. I’m not kidding. If that video only lives in our training archives, it will be a damn shame.
So I have hope for screencasts. Not to replace our hundreds of procedures, but to do something new that we are missing entirely right now. And, I hope we are going to think about what that is and do it right. Because so far, my impression is that screencasts may be like newsletters–if the first one I open is packed with good content, I’ll probably open the next one, too. If not, I probably won’t.
***
I showed this post to Stacey at work today, and this is what she said:
I guess my Public Speaking professor was wrong when she said that I would need to become more comfortable when giving presentations because otherwise, I may miss an opportunity to get my message across. Ha!
In all seriousness, I think video is an incredibly effective tool for conveying a lot of information without overwhelming the user/audience. It’s stealth rather than gorilla. That really appeals to me.
I loved reading this story about the screencast. I think you hit the focus — showing what the product can do — right on target. I’m looking forward to reading more about what you do with screencasts.
Thanks, Tom. Is that similar to what you are doing with screen casts? I’m really ready to start talking about what kinds of video deliverables will give us the most return on time spent.
I believe we’re on the same track. However, I’m changing my style for my next screencasts, moving to a more general, conceptual level rather than step-by-step procedures. I explained this shift in my latest post. My favorite screencasts are those created by Michael Pick on wordpress.tv.
Re background music, if you find some that sounds good and is not expensive to license, let me know.
Great post! We’re doing videos on YouTube for a new software product. So far, we’ve got lots of favorable feedback. It’s all about giving users what they want and we’ve already established that few of them read manuals anymore, right, Tom?
@Patty I’m interested to see those videos. That sounds like a fun project. Would you mind posting a link?
@Tom I read your post, and it gave me more ideas. I want to link to it here: http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2010/01/14/trying-to-find-a-theater-stagevoice-for-an-impossible-situation/#more-5557
It makes me think of using a screencast like a short description for a task: giving the summary, maybe prereqs, and outcome, rather than the step-by-step.
About music for screencasts: If you had someone who was up on local bands and other indie musicians, those bands might be interested in the exposure. Especially if the video was going to be somewhere public, and if
a credit was given.
I think you’ve touched on a very important subject here. Screencasts (video) can double as a marketing tool and an instructional tool.
A great screencast will inform the viewer about how to use the product and boost their motivation at the same time. I’ve found myself working more frequently with sales and marketing professionals lately because of screencasts, and I think it’s an effective way to engage end-users.
Good luck with your video projects, and thanks for writing such a great post!
Loved this story! I’m currently creating demos in a technical writer capacity.I really think video is the way to go! It’s less time-consuming to absorb and it really puts the user in the UI so they can accomplish a task. I work with some people who are going through what you went through. I’ll point them to this article! Thanks.
The D2D product videos are posted to YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/CAARCserveD2D
Please tell me what you think. The Cruising video features my *ahem* voice talent (and believe me, I use that term loosely).
Interesting read.
The bit you mentioned about the screencast making “the product look easy” is exactly dead on both from a marketing and educational perspective. I’ve been putting out screencasts for a while now and that is exactly what I try to do – demistify whatever the subject is.
I’m really happy to see screencasting get more mainstream. There have been people putting them out for years now, but it seems like they’re really gaining some popularity.
As for screencasting music – give Audio Jungle a try. I’ve been happy with them. http://audiojungle.net/
@Joy Great, thanks. I’m really pleased with the conversation this post has generated. It helps me to see what others are doing with video. Our documents are quite large, and I think we really have to watch what we commit to. I’d love the input from your co-workers.
@Patty Hey, that’s pretty good sound quality. How did you all decide to post on YouTube? Do you have other forms of documentation, as well?
I loved reading your screencast story! Thank you. I’m fascinated by discussions of how people learn, and how technology keeps helping us push that forward. As a strong “linguistic learner” (as defined by Howard Gardner’s work on Multiple Intelligences (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2049456/8-Styles-of-learning), I (and probably like you) often prefer to read (or scan) to gain information. But screencasting opens up learning avenues for so many more learning types! Depending on how your screencast is organized, you can appeal to musical learners, spacials, logicals, naturalistics, intrapersonals… It really can open your topics up to a much deeper level of understanding- which makes it hard to pass up as a tool when you’re trying to help people understand the complex.
BTW: I did a post on finding background music for your screencasts, which I hope might be helpful to you.
http://blogs.telestream.net/screenflow/2009/11/where-to-find-background-music-for-your-screencasts/
Thanks again for an interesting post.
@Craig I’d be interested to hear about your process of coordinating with sales and marketing. We are a large company, and collaboration between departments can be a production.
@Lynn Thanks so much for the music resources. I bookmarked your post.
Thanks for the interesting post. Of course it just leaves me wishing I could see that video!
I’ve been trying to get video into our documentation for some time now but haven’t succeeded yet due to budget/technical issues. However, I’ve never been entirely sure which type video would be the most effective: short task-based ones, getting started intros, conceptual overviews, etc. Your post lends weight to the argument that procedural videos maybe aren’t the way to go.
@kwritenow Not bad quality, recorded in my bedroom, with blankets hanging around me
That project is in beta right now. We’re using Google Groups to get feedback, have a WordPress blog to distribute news, and a traditional user guide, too. As for the decision to use YouTube, that came down from above. Last spring, a new manager took the helm – a huge cloud computing proponent. He believes strongly that we should be where our customers are – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc.
I’ve been cramming for months now. Come a long way, still a long way to go, since this is really like riding a wave.
Alistair’s comment reminded me how my videos evolved during the project to date. Originally, our intent was to illustrate a task. We’d plan to post a step list to the blog and follow it with a Show Me link, which would show the same task performed using the software interface.
I suppose we got carried away… things grew, changed, evolved and now, the videos are a mix of concept + task performance and live on YouTube instead of the blog. The problem with YouTube is that many companies block access to it due to streaming issues.
Midway through beta, our plans are shifting again. I will retake all the videos, this time, adding voiceover and more conceptual information before the ‘click this, type that’ directives. We’ll be interrupting screen flow to toss in a few well-placed illustrations. How we’ll manage all this, I can’t yet say. I’m quite worried about bloating the videos to 10 minutes. I feel strongly that they should remain 2-3 minutes, no longer, or we’ll bore users.
The one thing we have NOT considered is “Hey, look what this product did.” That may be the most important thing.
I wonder if some tasks might be appropriate for video, though. In the past two days, we have heard clients ask for more screenshots, partly to replace all the text and written steps. We have mainly used screenshots as “reassurance”–as in, yes, you’re on the right window. I think they’re asking for more than that by asking graphics to replace procedure steps.
Tom’s post about conversational screencasts reminds me of short descriptions that you can use precede step-by-step tasks: paragraph summaries of the task that state outcomes, prerequisites, and the difference between similar tasks. Maybe video can be similar to that.
Pingback: Weekly links roundup by Communications from DMN
There was a push to do video in our help systems a couple of years ago. Until the realization that we localize and the cost to localize videos in help systems can be exhorbitant.
I haven’t read all the responses but from a personal perspective, I will avoid video like the plague. I want to know what I need to know and not have to sit thru a bunch of fluff to get to it.
For product demonstrations, aka Brown Bag Lunches, where the product’s functionality can be demonstrated… yes, awesome. For help systems where the user needs to get a task accomplished? Not for me, and so far, not for any of our users.
P.S. Interestingly, we’ve also cut all screen shots out of user’s guides by close to 70% and so far, not a single user has screamed about it. We’ve left about 50% of them in in the quick starts, but in order to be able to effectively sim ship and localize into many languages, while ensuring costs don’t soar higher than our revenues, screen shots were eliminated. Judiciously, I may add. But no one has noticed.
@John Don’t know how I missed you the first time–thanks for the link. It’s out product teams that started to ask us for video, if I’m not mistaken.
@Sue Yes, translation is an issue. Sheer volume of material to document is an issue for us, too. We’ll have to save the video efforts for where they’re the best choice. We nixed many of our screen shots, too–I’d say 50%. But now we’re hearing that readers want more pictures and less text. We haven’t analyzed that feedback, yet, but I doubt that most of the plain, full-window shots we removed would be useful. I leave in screen shots to illustrate steps that are convoluted when described in words. I’m going to look at including more of those, actually.
Pingback: 3. Avoiding a Sense of Rambling [Developing a Personal Voice in Audio Series] | I'd Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson