Do's & Don'ts
Instructional video

• Keep your instructions simple. Refrain from digging too deeply, elaborating on the ‘how’ and ‘why’, but rather stick to the main instructions. Make the images tell your tale, by presenting your instructions in a visually attractive manner. Instructions in particular tend to get boring rather fast. Find a way that enables you to make them interesting enough in order for the viewer to be able to usurp the information easily. A means to achieve this end is by using a large amount of beautiful close-ups.
• Have the instructions explained by a voice-over or a presenter. Someone who is from your company is usually not used to being in front of a camera, and can therefore hardly qualify as an actor. An employee often lacks dynamics in his voice and expression and is likely to freeze up when in front of the camera.
• Chop up your video in sizeable chunks. Use small chapters in your tutorial and present them as separate modules. In this way, the viewer can directly skip to information he needs rather than to struggle through 20 minutes of film only to find that it turns out to be nothing he was initially looking for.
• Give your video along on DVD. Sell it with your product or put it on the intranet. Your viewer will be able to watch the video a number of times in a row in order to fully absorb all the presented instructions. In the end, your goal is for your viewer to actually learn something from your video!
• Use text in your images. Strategically scatter keywords throughout your video to amplify your dos and don’ts.

DO'NTS

• Make your video too long. People are only capable of retaining their concentration on the video for no more than a few minutes. Tutorial videos that take half an hour or over are not interesting and will soon change into a torment. Another side-effect of too-long-videos is that the viewer will forget what he’s seen in the beginning once he reaches the end of the video. Do yourself a favor, and distinguish your video from the big fat book of instructions that lodges in practically everybody’s bookcase. You know, there’s a good reason for people not looking in there...
• Show your film one time only. You want whoever watches the video to actually learn something from it. So, it is only reasonable for you to offer the viewer the opportunity to decide for himself if, where, and how often he will replay the video.