Video as Help
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
Apple have videos to demonstrate multi-touch features of the trackpad on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I'm not sure they're displayed in quite the right place (they're displayed on the trackpad preferences pane), or maybe they should be in the help as well. Having said that, a video's much better than a text description for showing how you drag with a single finger tap on a trackpad...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
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Apple have videos to demonstrate multi-touch features of the trackpad on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I'm not sure they're displayed in quite the right place (they're displayed on the trackpad preferences pane), or maybe they should be in the help as well. Having said that, a video's much better than a text description for showing how you drag with a single finger tap on a trackpad...
Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p
Stuart Dootson wrote:
Apple have videos to demonstrate multi-touch features of the trackpad on MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
Yes. I forgot about that. That has been the most helpful video I have seen so far.
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Videos tend to be paced slowly to carry the reader. I want to read, fast, to find the answer and move on. I really don't care about the irrelevant fluff that comes with a presentation. If a picture is worth a 1000 words and video is recorded at 30fps I am basically perusing through 9,000,000 words in a five minute video without a text search feature to quickly find the one sentence that describes exactly what I need. No thanks.
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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I think Google did it before they released Chrome. Personally, I thought they were aimed at idiots. Anyway, who needs help these days with anything that is not a software bug?
Emil - Gabriel wrote:
I thought they were aimed at idiots
And you would be right.... that is my user base :-)
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns Help humanity, join the CodeProject grid computing team here
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Distind wrote:
Looks good!
you could also look at Wink http://www.debugmode.com/wink/[^] which is free.
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns Help humanity, join the CodeProject grid computing team here
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Remember it is not a bug it is a feature. :laugh:
djj55 wrote:
Remember it is not a bug it is a feature
No, it's a video! :-D At best, it's a trailer.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
t cuts down training time
That might convince me.
That was my primary reason for implementing it the first time. After that, it just turned out that the end users prefer video, so long as the first time the video if introduced, its in a training environment. You can stand there like post and not say a word as the video plays (we use silent videos with captions using Camtasia studio). After that, you just watch the users do it. Monkey see, monkey do ;)
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
Don't know how useful they are, but if you do them, have them done professionally, especially the voices. My current company "rolled their own" and they are embarrassingly bad. Then again, I not only have a degree in film production, I ran my own company for five years that produced edutainment software and media content (I wrote, produced, directed and edited content as well as designed and wrote software) and I did several contracts for voice work (unless they've changed it, if you buy a ticket on the San Diego trolley or San Jose light rail and select to have the audio read to you, I produced that!) BTW, I once interviewed a company that produced training videos. What still annoys me about them is that their visual content was top notch, but their voice work was hideous. The videos they actually sold had pauses and "ums" in them. It was also recorded very badly--it had echo and lacked bass. Same thing happened at Novell--they spent a lot of money on some great content only to add in terrible actors and voice talent. (In both cases, I strongly suspect people were hiring friends and relatives, not seasoned professionals.)
modified on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:47 PM
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Don't know how useful they are, but if you do them, have them done professionally, especially the voices. My current company "rolled their own" and they are embarrassingly bad. Then again, I not only have a degree in film production, I ran my own company for five years that produced edutainment software and media content (I wrote, produced, directed and edited content as well as designed and wrote software) and I did several contracts for voice work (unless they've changed it, if you buy a ticket on the San Diego trolley or San Jose light rail and select to have the audio read to you, I produced that!) BTW, I once interviewed a company that produced training videos. What still annoys me about them is that their visual content was top notch, but their voice work was hideous. The videos they actually sold had pauses and "ums" in them. It was also recorded very badly--it had echo and lacked bass. Same thing happened at Novell--they spent a lot of money on some great content only to add in terrible actors and voice talent. (In both cases, I strongly suspect people were hiring friends and relatives, not seasoned professionals.)
modified on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:47 PM
Personally I don't see how having a voice over or an actor shown in a technical assistance video does anything but detract. I completely understand it in sales oriented videos when you're trying to convince someone of something but in a technical assistance video I see no benefit and only downsides to having a voiceover or actor appearance.
"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg
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Personally I don't see how having a voice over or an actor shown in a technical assistance video does anything but detract. I completely understand it in sales oriented videos when you're trying to convince someone of something but in a technical assistance video I see no benefit and only downsides to having a voiceover or actor appearance.
"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg
I'm not convinced of the benefit, but IF you make such a thing, it's best to have it done right. (One thing I hate about Microsoft's channel 9 is listening to people "um", "er" and "well" their way through a fifteen minute presentation that could have taken five.)
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Don't know how useful they are, but if you do them, have them done professionally, especially the voices. My current company "rolled their own" and they are embarrassingly bad. Then again, I not only have a degree in film production, I ran my own company for five years that produced edutainment software and media content (I wrote, produced, directed and edited content as well as designed and wrote software) and I did several contracts for voice work (unless they've changed it, if you buy a ticket on the San Diego trolley or San Jose light rail and select to have the audio read to you, I produced that!) BTW, I once interviewed a company that produced training videos. What still annoys me about them is that their visual content was top notch, but their voice work was hideous. The videos they actually sold had pauses and "ums" in them. It was also recorded very badly--it had echo and lacked bass. Same thing happened at Novell--they spent a lot of money on some great content only to add in terrible actors and voice talent. (In both cases, I strongly suspect people were hiring friends and relatives, not seasoned professionals.)
modified on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:47 PM
Joe Woodbury wrote:
, but if you do them, have them done professionally, especially the voices.
That is what my impression was when I first posted my question. But most people seem to have employed low tech and low budget means and have been satisfied with it as it worked.
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Joe Woodbury wrote:
, but if you do them, have them done professionally, especially the voices.
That is what my impression was when I first posted my question. But most people seem to have employed low tech and low budget means and have been satisfied with it as it worked.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
But most people seem to have employed low tech and low budget means
Professional doesn't mean high budget. Professional actors are not that expensive and with proper planning, you can keep those expenses to a minimum.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
and have been satisfied with it as it worked
No, they are deluded with the result. I'll bet these same people are satisfied with a manual that is full of misspellings, grammatical errors and poor formatting and with programs that have lots of bugs and a poorly designed interface. In my experience "it worked" means the boss liked it, not the customer.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
But most people seem to have employed low tech and low budget means
Professional doesn't mean high budget. Professional actors are not that expensive and with proper planning, you can keep those expenses to a minimum.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
and have been satisfied with it as it worked
No, they are deluded with the result. I'll bet these same people are satisfied with a manual that is full of misspellings, grammatical errors and poor formatting and with programs that have lots of bugs and a poorly designed interface. In my experience "it worked" means the boss liked it, not the customer.
Makes sense. I agree with you. At least the most important videos should be done professionally.
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Videos tend to be paced slowly to carry the reader. I want to read, fast, to find the answer and move on. I really don't care about the irrelevant fluff that comes with a presentation. If a picture is worth a 1000 words and video is recorded at 30fps I am basically perusing through 9,000,000 words in a five minute video without a text search feature to quickly find the one sentence that describes exactly what I need. No thanks.
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
Yeah but you are not the target for this stuff - I may consider it for MY users based on this discussion. What especially interests me is the low cost of introducing a new user, churn of staff in a specialised area is costly.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Emil - Gabriel wrote:
Will it be on youtube?
Trust me, if they get Jessica Alba in my office, you guys will NEVER hear the end of it. :rolleyes:
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
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Perhaps sarcasm and humour have passed you by?
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
We tend to do a combo in our office, or I should say I do a combo since as the only female in the IT department I get to do all the training videos. ;) We use use Adobe Captivate to creat flash movies of the computer screen so we can guide the user through the process in actions, while letting the user hear the instructions at the same time. We also include a PDF version of the step-by-step instructions. Some users prefer to read the instruction or to have the instructions right there next to them as they go through the process. Other users claim it take to much time to read through the instructions and try to figure out what they are supposed to do. While a third group will watch the video, then print the instructions and use them to guide them through the process so they don't have to worry about forgeting a step. Ironically, it is this third group of users that seems to have the most success. In my opion getting the information through sight, sound, and reading seems to get the information more firmly in their mind. This group very rarely needs additional help from IT. The down side of all this is that I get to do all the training videos and how tos for more then just IT. :sigh: T
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We tend to do a combo in our office, or I should say I do a combo since as the only female in the IT department I get to do all the training videos. ;) We use use Adobe Captivate to creat flash movies of the computer screen so we can guide the user through the process in actions, while letting the user hear the instructions at the same time. We also include a PDF version of the step-by-step instructions. Some users prefer to read the instruction or to have the instructions right there next to them as they go through the process. Other users claim it take to much time to read through the instructions and try to figure out what they are supposed to do. While a third group will watch the video, then print the instructions and use them to guide them through the process so they don't have to worry about forgeting a step. Ironically, it is this third group of users that seems to have the most success. In my opion getting the information through sight, sound, and reading seems to get the information more firmly in their mind. This group very rarely needs additional help from IT. The down side of all this is that I get to do all the training videos and how tos for more then just IT. :sigh: T
TrudyH wrote:
We use use Adobe Captivate
And here I was beginning to think that I was the only person working at a company that felt captivates features justified it over the AVI/MPEG recorders that cost a tenth as much.
The European Way of War: Blow your own continent up. The American Way of War: Go over and help them.
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
I personally can't stand video's. Most of the stuff I need ends up not being in there, but can't find that out until after watching the 10 minute video....so I don't use them anymore, as soon as one pops up, closed in .038 seconds. 10 minute "help" video to write multi-threaded apps in C#...turned out it had nothing to do with multi-threaded apps.....gah! I think a simple easy 5 second sample code would have worked. (Thats just an example I ran into a little while back while just starting to learn threading.)
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How many of you have been shipping or providing Videos on how to perform tasks in your applications? How have the users responded to it? Also do you hire professionals to do the voice overs? I see that it is a growing trend now. Though personally I don't prefer videos as they take lot of time over reading. However, I see some people actually like it. One thing is certain, very few users actually read the help file or documents. But is the investment on videos actually worth in providing user education?
I'll chime in as a video watcher/developer. I've been a professional developer for 10 years and we are just starting to incorporate video into our own apps. We plan to shoot 5 minute videos on the topics that we get the most calls on. Most of our users are general business people and teachers with varying degrees of computer literacy. We anticipate that having a nice 5 minute video clearly walking the user through a complex task will heavily cut down on training, support time and increase quality (for those that dive in and don't think to call when they don't know what they are doing). Our case may be unique in that our main application is supplied by a 3rd party, and is woefully complex and inadequate. while we are looking to change vendors at the end of our contract we are forced to find inexpensive ways to train users through the more complex tasks. I think short videos will be a great help in this area. That being said, I am a video watcher myself. As a programmer I love cutting edge flashy new frameworks, APIs, etc. Often I'll look for short video clips about a new technology before spending the time to dive into the docs and white papers. It not only helps me to evaluate whether a new technology is worth looking into but also helps me get the overall concept fresh in my head for when I pour over the detailed documentation. If any of you are into TDD I just found out about Roy Osherove's TDD code reviews on his blog[^]. Most are fairly quick. While I've been doing TDD off and on for a few years it's great to see a veteran walk through code in person and to hear his thoughts. Extremely valuable. Sure he could have just written this on his blog, but the video is much more compelling, easier to keep focused on and more consumable I think.