Best practices to crafting tutorials on fyiio
Take advantage of the independent strengths of video and written instructions.
fyiio requires both a video under 2.5 minutes in length and written step-by-step instructions before somebody can publish it.
But why, you ask?
For starters — roughly half of us prefer learning either through video or reading how to do something. Additionally, data from my 23 million views on YouTube showed the average attention span for my tutorials was under 2:30. The average length of my content was double that.
If you ever found yourself wanting to ask someone if they watched a tutorial before reaching out to support, you should first look at how long your content is and how accessible it is to your audience.
More importantly, however, video and written instructions have their respective, distinct advantages and disadvantages:
Video is excellent at visualizing how a task is done but can struggle to be very detailed since you'll likely lose people in the weeds and probably make your video a lot longer than people are willing to pay attention to.
Text is the exact opposite — great at being detailed but struggles to visualize. It's a bit like IKEA assembly instructions. Where does this piece go again? Oh, it's upside down.
For these reasons, the written tutorial must never be the script for the video. In my last email, I talked about how you should look at creating the written tutorial first if you don't have a video yet. It helps organize my thoughts into detailed step-by-step instructions and act as the template for designing my video tutorial.
Utilize the intro step
fyiio's written tutorial editor includes an "intro step" feature, which removes the step number and allows you to provide viewers with important information before starting a process. Some examples include a parts list, download links, and product specifications.
Consolidate similar steps into themes
Merging related steps into "themes" with related "sub-tasks" inside them can improve both the tutorial creation and viewing experience. Creators won't need to manage many tutorial steps, while viewers won't be distracted by rapidly-updating steps or overwhelmed by seeing a lot of steps in a process.
Avoid overusing presentation software
We don't recommend using recordings of PowerPoint/Keynote presentations for your video tutorial, as doing so increases the likelihood of running afoul of the first point in this email. Slides with a lot of written content are better suited in the written tutorial, as displaying text in a video negates the visual advantage video provides.
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fyiio builds tutorial software that enables support teams to rapidly create, place, and maintain interactive guides when and where they're needed most.