Making Video Tutorials

Just like writing a paper or preparing a presentation, video tutorials are much easier to produce if you take the time to build an outline or framework to plan your content around. This will ensure that you stay on target and cover everything you need to. What do you want to teach? What things do you need to cover?

The example below shows how you could plan a 30 minute overview of the library website and a few specific databases. I find it helpful to estimate the time it takes to go through every section.

• Intro: navigating the library website (5 minutes)
  • Quick search
  • Ask a Librarian
  • Databases
  • Images
• Finding full text content(5 minutes)
  • Peer reviewed articles
  • eBooks
• ArtStor (10 minutes)
  • Creating an account
  • Searching image collections
• New York Times (10 minutes)
  • Creating an account
  • Navigating the interface
  • Advanced search options

Are you giving an overview, summarizing a point, or talking to your audience about a concept? Just like an old fashioned powerpoint presentation, visuals can enhance the user experience by giving your audience something related to look at while they're listening to the dulcet tones of your voice. Adobe Spark has some great built-in options for inserting images, icons, and text into your video as slides, but you can also use Photoshop to make graphics or even Google Slides/Powerpoint.

For example, the slide below was produced using Adobe Spark's slideshow tools:

Try these:

• Unsplash (Images)
• Pexels (Images and Video)
• Pixabay (Images, Videos, and Vector)
• Creative Commons Search (images)

While your recording may come off unnatural or stilted when reading directly from a script, it can be really helpful to write one so that you can guarantee that you're using the right phrasing, staying within time constraints, and covering all of the important side-bits. As a bonus, if you completely stick to your script in the recording phase, you can use your text document as the source for your video's transcript!

I like to break my script down into sections and associate those sections with what's happening (or going to happen) on screen. For example, If I'm using Adobe Spark and I'm going to record my script slide-by-slide, I'll break up my document according to the number of slides. Not only does this help to keep me organized, but it also prevents me from going on long-winded tangents that aren't connected to visuals. 

If you're planning to show users how to do complex actions or navigate complex interfaces, be sure to move slower than you normally would and do one thing at a time. For example, if I'm telling a user to click on the cog icon on the top right of the screen, I don't want to tell them as I'm doing it on-screen. That won't give them enough time to process what I said and note the location.

Instead, I'll say it first, "you need to click on the cog icon on the top right of the screen." After I've said this sentence aloud, I'll deliberately move the cursor to the cog on the screen and perform the action.

Try rehearsing the content without recording. If it helps, you can present it to a nearby friend (or cat).  Does it all make sense? Is there something you need to add? If so, identifying it before you hit the record button will save you a lot of grief down the road!