February 2015 – Page 2 – The Logical Blog

February 11, 2015

Learning and Development: Effective Videos, Part 2

by Matthew Pierce

In last week's article about creating effective eLearning videos, I wrote about video viewership and the ideal length for a video. This week, it's all about keeping viewers interested and the best information to present.

Keeping viewers interested

One of the prime reasons that viewers turn off to video is because the delivery of content doesn't engage or appears as boring. The TechSmith Viewer study dug into what makes content uninteresting. There are many ways to be considered boring, just a few of them include:

A dull or monotonous speaker
Content is by nature boring
The pace of delivery is too slow
The information is a repeat from earlier delivery of material
A bad approach has been decided and taken

Overcoming some of these hurdles can be challenging. Audiences can be subjective and depending on your audience size, you may need to determine what is the least problematic approach, without letting the video become too generalized or plain–which will also cause viewers to stop watching.

What is the best information to present?

Some participants in the study indicated that they actually wanted different information from what was provided in the videos they had seen. This can be subjective as we can't always deliver what they want versus what they need, but we should keep in mind that viewers, especially learners, do tend to have a good gauge of whether the information achieved its objectives. When viewers wanted different information, we found that they were missing details. If the content was instructional in nature, they found there wasn't enough step-by-step instruction. Also, on many occasions the content of the video was not accurately reflected in the description, which can lead the viewer down the frustrating path of starting a video only to discover that it doesn't meet their needs.

Finally, viewers indicated that instructional and informational videos were not specific enough. It's easy as a content creator to assume how much any one of your viewers may already know. And since it can be difficult to pre-assess knowledge and deliver just what is needed, testing and being open to feedback from your audience is critical to success.

Conclusion

As we move into a digital era where video content is becoming king, technical communicators need to find a fine balance between creating videos that achieve their purpose and understanding how their viewers will best consume their content. One cannot exist without the other.

The best video will be created by a person who has considered the content, how it is delivered, the amount of details, and even the amount of time to ensure it does not fall flat with viewers. In comparison to entertaining videos, instructional and informational videos need to work a little bit harder to win over audiences; but through a variety of settings, and interesting approaches viewers can stick to your content like glue.

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February 4, 2015

Learning and Development: What Makes Videos Effective?

by Matthew Pierce

When you think of what a trainer or instructional designer (ID) does, the first thing that comes to mind is probably not video communication. Nevertheless, video is becoming a larger and more important piece of their workload. While it is still not so common that they will need to work with video daily, it is beginning to have more impact on their daily lives; ID's and trainers will now need to be ready to create videos for their work.

Because video is growing in usage for the learning and development space, TechSmith Corporation wanted to better understand what makes a great video. If you can determine the attributes that make a video great, perhaps you can reverse engineer those pieces and apply them to your own videos. TechSmith's Viewer Research Study comprised 1900 participants from a variety of roles and industries including financial services, education, government, healthcare, manufacturing, software design and development, and more. The majority of participants fell within the age range of 25 to 64.

Techsmith: Age breakdown of survey participants.

Because there are different purposes for videos, questions were asked to help determine what type of video they were thinking of during the research. The types of video were narrowed down to three: Entertainment, Informational, and Instructional. For our purpose, we focused our research on learning from those who were considering informational and instructional video.

Let the Experiments Begin

Among the key learning of the research, there are lessons that everyone who is considering creating a video should consider, which when applied will help guide us to creating better and more effective visual content. Like all research, I invite you to run your own experiments and validate the research in your environment and for your particular audience.

Video Viewership

With the rise of YouTube, Vimeo, and other video sharing sites, the amount of video being consumed on the web is increasing. According to a report from Cisco, online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016. While a lot of video viewership will be focused on entertainment and its increasing ubiquity, not all of it will be. Some portion will be focused on information delivery and instruction. As video viewing increases, there are points you should understand about how to create better videos, which will allow for better engagement and enable you to achieve your end goals.

Some of the results of the study give insight into viewer habits, which may help you make sure you shape the learner experience. For instance, instructional and information videos are watched most in the morning and the evening. This could indicate that viewers are watching when they feel they have time. This leads to asking, what does the information delivery need that will allow the viewer to get the most from the information?

Importance of video length

For a number of years, I have taught people that videos need to be short, concise, and probably no more than three minutes in length. I have found that while this is still the case, it didn't take into consideration what viewers wanted.

The data from the research indicates that for instructional and informational videos a higher percentage of viewers actually prefer longer videos (with the range varying between four to fifteen minutes in length). When looking at those that were flagged as good or great videos, the length of instructional and informational videos can sometimes be up to 10 minutes in length.

Techsmith: Video Length

The length of the video may seem surprising; but with more context, it is understandable why a viewer would prefer a longer video. Think about the information you might want to deliver or something you would want to teach; it can be often difficult to condense that information down to a one to three minute video. In addition, other data points indicate that viewers want the right information that will guide and direct them. If the video has too little or too much, they aren't going to want to view it. While it's a difficult balance to achieve, you can solve the problem by asking appropriate questions. You need to understand the problem, and what information or instruction will help to provide the solution.

A number of survey participants indicated that they stopped watching a video because it was not the expected information, the wrong topic, boring, or uninteresting content.

Techsmith: Why people stop watching videos

As you start creating videos, remember you have flexibility in the length; but if you provide too much information that is not directly helpful or relevant, the video will be less effective.

Next week: Keeping viewers interested, and the best information to present.

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February 3, 2015

Now Shipping: “Articulate Storyline 2: The Essentials” Workbook

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There are tons of activities supported by a mountain of screen shots. As you work through the lessons, there are challenge exercises (Confidence Checks) that will immediately put your new-found skills to the test and reinforce what you've learned.

You'll use Storyline to create projects from scratch. You'll work with slides, learn how to add text, images, characters, and shapes. There are lessons that will teach you how to add interactivity to your slides via buttons, Triggers, text entry areas, and hotspots. And you'll learn how to create quizzes, and how to publish your eLearning projects for the widest possible audience.

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February 1, 2015

Writing & Grammar: Fake Words

by Jennie Ruby

Starting off our pet peeves this week are two about fake words. Julie Vails gives us

Anyways. That is not a word!

Anyways is a dialect entry in Webster's. Certainly it does not belong in business writing.

Lisa Blaski calls out

Made-up words–for example making the word "solicit" into "solicitating."

That is a great example of a "back formation." People invent incorrect verbs by working backward from the noun form, in this case, solicitation. Since the noun has that extra syllable in it, they put that syllable into the verb form, or in some cases just make up a verb that does not exist. Here are a couple of others:

Conversate, conversating (from conversation)

commentate (from commentator)

emote (from emotion)

What happens next is that the dictionary writers observe these words and some of them become accepted usage, like curate (from curator).

That extra syllable creeps into some other words as well, such as preventative (should be preventive), but that is not even a back formation from anything!

Stacey Edwards gives us a wordy phrase as a pet peeve:

I frequently see the phrase "in order" added to a description of how to accomplish a particular task. For example, in order to bake a cake, you must have an oven. I cannot think of an example when "in order" actually adds any information or is required for clarity.

And rounding out this week's batch, Mary Gerhardt gives us another example from a regional dialect:

My pet peeve is when people pair the verb need with a past-tense verb, for example, "Those dishes need washed," or "This project needs finished." I respect and appreciate regional dialects, but I cringe when I hear it in a formal business setting or see it in corporate documents. I believe this is just an Iowa phenomenon.

What they are leaving out, of course, is to be.

The hoard continues to grow, and I will keep sharing the peeves. In a few weeks we will try another direction; but for now, stay peeved, my friends, stay peeved.