You’re creating instructional videos. How can you make sure they’re effective?

At the very beginning, you must ask yourself a very important question: Why is this video needed? Your instructional content must be rooted in the customer’s experience. Is it your job to give instructions in a video? Is that the most user-friendly approach? Could efforts be made to simplify whatever process led you to believe a video was needed in the first place? If nothing can be done to avoid needing a video, take to gathering data from screen recordings, analytics, and any other data sources to make sure you are instructing on the difficulties that customers are facing, not just the difficulties you think need to be explained.

Para mi ha sido muy útil generar guiones de contenido que permitan ordenar la información para solo incluir lo pertinente y que será relevante para el usuario. Con esos guiones, tanto el experto de la temática como el diseñador, sabrán a qué punto queremos llegar.

Creating effective instructional videos requires careful planning. Clear Objectives: Define the learning objectives upfront. What should viewers know or be able to do after watching the video? Clear goals guide your content. Engaging Content: Keep it concise and engaging. Break down complex topics, using visuals, animations, and real-world examples to maintain interest. Structured Flow: Organize content logically. A clear beginning, middle, and end with a smooth flow helps learners follow the material easily. Visual Appeal: Use high-quality visuals and graphics. Visual aids enhance understanding and retention. Ensure good lighting and sound quality. Interactive Elements: Incorporate quizzes, questions, or interactive elements.

Here are some things to consider when creating effective instructional videos: - Choose the treatment (e.g. animated vs. headshot) and visual design style that appeal to and meet the needs of your target audience - Keep the videos short (less than 5 min. if possible) each covering a small, logical, and independent chunk of the content - Use a conversational narration style - Support the narration with relevant onscreen text and visuals like images, diagrams, infographics, etc. - Include relevant examples and real-life scenarios to make the content relatable

Begin by asking a crucial question: What is the purpose of this video? Ensure your instructional content is centered around the customer's experience. Evaluate whether creating a video is the most user-friendly approach for providing instructions. Consider simplifying the process that led you to opt for a video in the first place. If producing a video is unavoidable, gather data from screen recordings, analytics, and other sources to focus on addressing the actual challenges customers are facing, rather than just what you perceive as problematic. 📌

Something that's even MORE important than your content "format" is the settings it's going to be used in! Are you creating educational videos for kindergarten classes? Elementary schools? Middle school, high school, tech companies, my list can go on and on. The setting your educational content is going to be used in will help guide the flow of content, type, and the accessory content you can make to go along with the main asset!

From the draft plan you did for what you aim to achieve with your video, you will be able to see clearly which format will make it more outstanding, fun, and interactive. Having a better grasp of the kind if audience you're dealing with also gives you an upper hand in detecting what tools and methods of interaction will best fit.

In my experience of reviewing science content, creating videos around conceptual understanding FORMAT makes or mars the product. Points worth considering are what 1. text (font type and size) 2. infographics 3. pause between sentences 4. size of the diagrams (hand-drawn or design-led?) Content to conceptual understanding goes through many milestones; preconcepts, misconceptions, or misrepresentation. Having shorter videos for each with an invitation to hit a pause button, think for themselves, and then continue with the video is a format that invites deeper engagement. Concept visualization through real, simulated, or animated models needs close consideration. Examples, metaphors, and analogies chosen should be age-appropriate.

Um dos pontos com maior impacto são os slides, para alguns eles são como o teleprompter..... é preciso compreender seu público e decidir o que será e como será utilizado.

It should reflect marketing trends. Though one might consider making it more interactive, through audio and visuals, the content being creative makes it promising.

One thing to remember while recording a video is to believe you are talking to a person in front of you. When you have that belief, it shows in your face and voice, making the video more impactful. Your voice should be soothing but assertive. You should take pauses, like you would in a real life conversation. You should introduce breaks between different segments to avoid the monotony of listening to or watching the same thing for a long time. You may address the audience in the second person and adopt a conversational tone. It helps them connect and interact with the video and the presenter meaningfully.

If you're using AI for voiceover, you may need to make several generations of the same phrase before you find the voice inflection you're looking for. Keep this in mind when you are writing your script, too. You might have to change to an unorthodox spelling of the word in order for AI to generate the sound you want.

Vale testar vários formatos e identificar qual é o seu estilo!!!! Para encontrar o meu, tive que experimentar fórmulas que não deram certo. Quando parei para compreender qual era o valor que queria gerar, tudo mudou.

Editing plays a key role in enhancing the video quality. Consider the following while editing. - Remove unwanted gaps/noises - Speed up slow portions - Give proper transitions - Include texts/annotations in video wherever necessary - Add animations to create visual appeal

While recording the video, make sure you are looking at the cameras and not at the script. and while editing, make sure you are using transitions properly; too many transitions can distract your audience. Also, make sure text and images are aligned with your speech and script and stay on the screen for a certain period.

You don't want to just test your video for technical aspects. Watch it through a number of times, shifting your focus to different things each time you watch it. Look for things like playability glitches, audio volume, transitions, camera or screen movement, etc.

Evaluating and testing your creation is a must before it’s rolled out the larger audience as it gives you the areas where you can improve on and also highlights any errors which can be rectified.

It is important to test your video before it goes to the audience because sometimes, things that you thought you had taken care of may still be present and will end up staring you in the face at inappropriate times causing you great embarrassment. Therefore, have a 3rd eye look into the video, get feedback work on it before finalizing it.

Testing after the video is created is good. But this step should also happen earlier into the process, as early as when you’re drafting the content. Show the draft to another person that is not knowledgeable in the topic and ask them if your draft is clear and understandable. This can prevent you from going to all the trouble of recording and editing a script that was incoherent to begin with.

When you are creating a project for the first time, it is important to prototype and test a "minimum viable product", in this case, a simpler video made with few resources to be piloted. It's important that during piloting there is a process of research and collection of feedback from the people who will be impacted by it and with this data you can move towards a more robust and complete production, with all the resources available. At the end, a new evaluation is carried out, which can take place at different levels: user experience evaluation, quality evaluation and results evaluation. This is a cyclical and iterative process that enables effectiveness and continuous improvement.

Once you have created the video and you have completed the testing and evaluation phase then you must upload the video on the LMS or the tool used by your org. It is very important that you spread the awareness and advertise your creation so that maximum audience can use it.

Having done all that is needed to be done, you're free to now upload your video for public consumption. Through the audience interaction, you can tell what they garnered from it, what it means to them, and how much you can put, into improving subsequent ones.

Prioritize platforms where your target audience is most active: Using platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and Udemy are excellent for their wide reach and educational focus. Additionally, embedding videos on your website can boost SEO and keep viewers engaged with your content longer. Multichannel Promotion: Leverage social media, email newsletters, and blogs to promote your videos. Use eye-catching previews on social media, detailed descriptions in blogs and personalized introductions in emails. Monitor key metrics like views, likes, shares, and retention rates: This data is invaluable for understanding viewer engagement and preferences. Use these insights to refine your video content, making it more appealing and effective for your audience.

Choose appropriate platforms and channels for distributing your instructional video, such as your website, social media, video-sharing platforms, or learning management systems. Optimize your video title, description, and tags for search engine visibility, making it easier for users to discover and access your content. Promote your video through email newsletters, blog posts, social media announcements, and collaborations with relevant influencers or organizations.

The best way to create an effective instructional video is to ask yourself two things: A. Who is it for? B. Does it need to be dumbed down? Ask these questions to yourself after every draft. Once your answer to pt. B is a 'No', get an outsider's perspective if you can and incorporate their feedback into your script. Repeat the process till you are satisfied and, at the end, you will have an effective instructional video. Bonus: If you can use a seasoned voice artist to record the instructions than an AI-generated voice, then your video is more likely to do its job.

Uma boa hierarquia é a chave de toda boa instrução. Antes de qualquer coisa, precisamos roteirizar o vídeo detalhando cada etapa em ordem lógica. Depois, testamos tudo do ponto de vista do usuário. Está compreensível? Tudo o que ele precisa está ao seu alcance? Eu também gosto muito de usar exemplos com dados fictícios que simulam o mundo real do usuário. Aí sim, depois de tudo isso, chegou a hora de gravar, editar, colocar capinha bonitinha, flor e perfume. Mas nada disso é mais importante do que a clareza na transmissão do conhecimento.

For delivering the basic maths content, I create screencast videos. Explain Basics works really good on my iPad; you can edit on the go, and you have almost every feature in the app. You just need to download and play with it. Make sure that your videos are => clear, not confusing, => as long as the grade level of your students, not more (Grade 9 students / 9-10 minute videos, etc.) => Picture-in-Picture, if possible; research has shown that students' focus increases when they see their own teacher on the videos.

I've been doing this a lot building short videos for my 14 day 'Blitz Teacher Burnout Challenge". Keep instructional videos short. As concise as possible without compromising the message. Have just 1 or 2 key 'action points'. Provide recap /recall opportunities throughout to help embedd the message, as if they are watching a replay, it is likely their attention may be diverted at some point.

* Learn about your audience and then plan the content. * Set clear learning outcomes. * The video format should support your topic/content. * Think in images. * Time your video. * Make your audience connect to your video.