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FacebookThinking About an STC Proposal to Submit
September 17th, 2008 | Posted in Screencasting 5 Comments »
Did you see the STC’s call for proposals for the next annual conference in Atlanta? Last year I presented on podcasting. The 55 people who commented on my session rated it higher than average (the rating was around 4.6 as opposed to the 4.3 average). I think my presentation was good, but most people wanted me to connect it more to technical communication. They wanted to see how technical material could be presented as a podcast, I believe.
I admit that was a hole in my presentation. I’m still not entirely clear how to pull that one off. Podcasts are mostly vehicles for conceptual information, and help material often consists of nitty-gritty how to content.
At work I do create voice-based video tutorials that users watch, but not a half hour of pure how-to audio (though I do keep meaning to create one on WordPress). At any rate, I really appreciated the feedback. It’s a direction I’m moving to but haven’t quite reached yet.
This year I’m thinking of submitting a proposal about Voice in video tutorials. I’ve watched countless video tutorials where the voice sounded as if someone used a Fisher Price microphone, or where the tone was monotone and boring, or simply unengaging. I want to present on ways to make the voice in your video tutorials sound fresh and spontaneous, natural, friendly. Like someone was sitting right there next to you. Talking to you.
I’d also like to present some comparative research on voice-based tutorials versus caption-based tutorials (e.g., for example, which is better and why).
Creating a video tutorial also requires some knowledge of audio — which file format to use, the bit rate, the hertz, and so on, as well as how to clean it up, enrich the sound, add in music and other effects.
I think the video tutorial lives or dies based on the voice. If you’re warm and engaging, people keep listening. If you sound nasal, stiff, and staticky, the tutorial plummets.
What do you think? Would this be an interesting topic? Has someone presented on this before? Do you know of any resources that would be helpful to me?
Tags: atlanta, audio, proposals, stc conference, video tutorials
The audio part of video presentations is very important, but I wonder if it’s enough to get people to attend the talk? What about expanding it a bit to “Engaging Your Audience Through Multimedia”? For screencasts, that would be primarily through presentation style and voice–staying energetic, not going off on tangents, and such. Plus, it includes analysing your audience and presenting just enough for their expected knowledge and the amount of time they’re likely to devote to getting the answer (novice=more time, expert=needs instant answer).
About voice-based vs. caption-based tutorials–Richard E. Mayer has done some good summaries of the study reports, for example in his book “Multimedia Learning”. I’m sure there are others who have done it too. What I got from it was basically:
There are two types of memory: working memory and long-term memory. We can hold about seven chunks of information in working memory, and if something new comes along, it replaces a chunk, which is either stored in long-term memory (rarely, unless special steps are taken) or else lost. However, there are two channels of memory: the visual channel and the auditory channel. Each channel gathers information separately, which doubles the possible input and reduces overload in either channel. If you present captions over pictures, it’s all visual input and it leads more quickly to cognitive overload.
Harry Millers last blog post..Engagement Through Episodic Story: Part 3 of 3
@ Harry, thanks so much for pointing me in the direction of Mayer’s research. It’s interesting to read about the cognitive overload theory. Also, thanks for the feedback on my possible presentation. What you say has a lot of merit. I’ll have to think more about this.
You’ve done a lot with multimedia. Can you point me to the links of the recent work you’ve done? I remember seeing you post the links on Twitter, and I checked them out briefly. Now I’d like to really dive into them.
Sure, you can see the videos I’ve doing on my “portfolio” blog:
http://www.harrymillermedia.com/
A little about my thinking behind the unusual style–many (possibly most) screencasts are based on the teacher/student paradigm, where an authority presents information for the edification of the learner. That’s great for reference material; perfect, actually, if I’m in the middle of a project and I need an answer to a problem before I can move forward.
They don’t seem to get a lot of views, though so far I haven’t done very much to advertise them.
But sometimes people like to collect information they don’t need right away, especially about the tools/techniques they work with for a living, in case some day they encounter a problem and they remember having seen a related solution. For example, people love cooking shows and home improvement shows, even if they aren’t going to cook or remodel that same way.
So I’m experimenting with instructional video as an entertainment channel. But to this point, I haven’t seen much in the way of results–few people comment on the blog, though at the last developer conference someone recognized me and said he loved the videos and pointed his classes to them.
Harry Millers last blog post..Engagement Through Episodic Story: Part 3 of 3
Harry, those instructional videos are amazing and incredibly entertaining. I just spent the last half hour watching them when I should have been working. Awesome work.
What video editing tools are you using? I love the one where it fades to black and and white and the guy appears in the back of the room. I also like the latest one you posted. Very impressive. Keep it up.
Thanks, Tom! I use Camtasia for screen capture and Adobe Premiere Pro for all the editing and effects, like the black&white, the animation, and the superimposed video. I also use Adobe Audition for some audio editing, and also for the music and sound effects.
Harry Millers last blog post..Engagement Through Episodic Story: Part 3 of 3