THE TRAINER POINT OF VIEW
Here is another step before I actually go into recording a training video – the testing.
It happens quite frequently that I have this nice idea for a video, get started with my samples, play around with settings and features and then realize during testing that I am either missing a step or the sample sentences are not in the right sequence or I find a bug in the software and cannot use the sample I had planned to use or, or, or…
Testing is essential. This quality assurance – the steps you take so that quality can happen – is absolutely necessary. I guess, everybody who tried to “repair” a video by adding boxes over things that should not be visible or tries to insert a screenshot in a video knows what I mean.
Going through the steps that I want to show also helps me to create the text that I want to have in the video (either written or spoken or both). I collect the text in a table format so that I can associate a certain slide number or dialog in the software with the text that belongs to it. If I am working with slides, the text document also shows when I need to move on to the next animation or next slide altogether.
Example:
And, as tedious as it is, another QA step is to use the script to actually go through the feature you are showing again and again. If the topic is a very complex one and I need a lot of specific settings to show something, I make a list of the settings as well. Like, a special database to load, a special checkbox to activate, and the size of the windows I am showing etc.
But still, every time I actually do a recording, I find a typo in the script or a missing mark for starting an animation or I have to redo everything because this time I did not revert to the default settings I wanted to start out with. But there would probably be a lot more of those things if I had not done all the testing upfront.
Adding voice to a video can be done in several ways. You can record your voice while you click through the software or show the slides. Or you can do a video of the feature and add your voice later. For me, it does not really matter, the time I need to spend on it is about the same either way. I have now tried to work with a slightly different setup. Slides and voice to explain things and then small pieces of clicking through the software without voice-over.
I would be interested to hear what strategies other trainers are using.
Angelika
(Trainer for translation tools since 1997)
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