Video, documentation, and you

22 Jun

Posted by Scott as authoring, technical communication, techniques, tools

8mm_camera A picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s true, then a video should be worth several pages of those words. Video is the ultimate in showing and telling. Instead of relying on lengthy procedures,
a short, well-made video can walk a user through what needs to be done to complete a task.

But is video the be all, end all? Is it really the next stage in the evolution of documentation? Will it supplant text and static images? Read on to learn what I think.

Advantages of video

One of the great things about creating video is that the costs can be quite low. This is especially true when you’re focusing on screencasting. Commercial screencasting software is relatively inexpensive — Adobe Captivate will set you or your employer back about $800 (US), and Camtasia Studio goes for about a third of that. And don’t discount the plethora of free, Open Source, and online screencasting tools.

Video also has he advantage of not needing to rely on words. It’s easy to show someone how to perform a task or to demonstrate a new feature. Navigating readers through menus or other parts of an interface using words on page or screen alone can be confusing.

It’s fairly easy to include video in online user assistance, especially if the help is HTML based. A short video, and a good tutorial video shouldn’t be longer than a couple of minutes, only adds a megabyte or two (depending on the format that you use) to a help file.

The drawbacks

And there are a few.

Not everyone wants video as part of their documentation – they want information now, and don’t want to wait a couple of minutes to watch a walk through of what they need to do. As you might know, I bought a BlackBerry a few months back. To expand the memory, I got myself a microSD card. I wasn’t sure how to install the card, so I decided to to compare what was more effective: the printed instructions for inserting the card, or a video of the same by the folks at Crackberry.com. The video was just over three minutes long; it took me less than that to find the instructions that came with my phone and to do the job. So, sometimes, going old school works better.

And do videos shut out a portion of your audience? That’s what this blog post argues. While that post focuses on people who don’t learn visually, you also have to keep in mind that some of the people who use your documentation might be visually impaired.

Some software shops need to worry about translation and localization. That goes not only for their wares, but for the user assistance too. Video adds another layer of complexity to this. Scripts need to be translated into the target languages. Then, you need to do voiceovers in those languages. If you don’t have the linguistic talent in house, then those tasks need to be farmed out. Just watch your costs soar.

Screencasts are fine, but …

Not everyone documents or needs to learn how to use software. There are a large number of technical communicators out there who deal with physical items. Smartphones, netbooks, medical devices, engines, and more. You need a lot more than a computer and some software to document that.

Simply pulling out a flip camera and recording, then editing the video on a MacBook isn’t enough. You really need high-quality equipment to make a clear, professional video. That’s not easy. It takes a lot of planning to do the job properly — eveything from content to pacing to planning your shots. You’re essentially putting together a one or more short movies.

You might not have the skills or gear in-house to record a video. Once again, you’ll have to go outside of your enterprise. And, again, this can get expensive. But if you have the need and the budget, it’s an option.

Conclusion

While I don’t think that video will replace other forms of documentation, I do think it can be a useful and powerful supplement to that documentation. If done well, video does add an extra dimension to documentation and to your set of skills.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.