February/March 2007

Volume 47, Number 4

Creating a Low-Cost Video Web Seminar

by Guy Ball, STC Senior member, Orange County (CA) chapter

While text is still best for presenting many types of reference and procedural information, video can be very effective when illustrating product features, clarifying system configurations, and supplementing complex written procedures. The trick is to merge the two so they complement each other and deliver a dynamic documentation package as an online or CD-based web seminar.

Although the multimedia concept has been around for some time, creating a seminar like this traditionally requires a good-sized team of writers, videographers, graphic artists, subject matter experts (SMEs), and a manager to keep the team working smoothly. If you already have a large staff or access to graphic professionals, congratulations!

Our staffing situation is the opposite: we have to make do with a single writer and a few SMEs. The plus of this situation is that it allows us to deliver the final product faster and less expensively—both important considerations for our cost-conscious management.

We take advantage of our low-cost (but high-quality) video camera and simplified video-editing software to deliver additional “visual documentation” to our service support team and customers. For us the trick is to look clean and professional while not getting caught producing a Hollywood extravaganza that would demand extra staff time and weeks of extra work with little extra benefit. Instead of “fancy,” we make sure our content and delivery is effective both from communications and cost perspectives.

Our final output (web or CD) includes a combination of video, Adobe PDF, and HTML files. Our worldwide service team members all have laptops, so if they can’t access the Internet from their work facilities, they can use the CD.

The first step in creating a project efficiently is to understand and plan well—no secret there. We ask what our purpose is:

• Fix a problem?
• Document a new process or tool?
• Highlight some feature of the product or its servicing?

More-specific concerns are:

• What will the project look like?
• Is it important to include a video?
• Will a single video be enough?
• Will the video show live-action (with a person or the system)?
• Will we use a screen capture program to demonstrate how the software behaves?
• Are written procedures and reference drawings included?

Usually, we decide on some sort of video and add some text-based procedures in PDF or online Help. By adding video, we’ve improved the comprehension of the written procedures so that the service staff can use the text portion for reference and detailed information.

In my case, the “actors” are more knowledgeable engineers or first-tier support engineers. (Oddly enough, some of the quiet ones do quite well when you turn the camera on them.) We meet and roughly plan what the content will be and how we will break it up into manageable chunks.

I try to stick to 4–6 minutes for each video. (Although it doesn’t always work, that’s the goal.) Any longer and most viewers get antsy and click away.

Long discussions are often divided into shorter “chapters.” This also forces us to develop our content more efficiently and not include more than we need to. It’s a good bargaining chip with the SMEs, who too often want to explain every nuance of a system while on video. (I offer to let them speak in depth on other video segments, thus keeping my main one short.)

In most cases, we use live-action video. Our SMEs usually have a good idea of what they want to say, and I just videotape them while they’re performing the procedure they’re discussing.

This is all “live” and often handheld—I use a tripod when I can, but often I just try to be steady as I move along with the expert. I also later shoot some secondary close-up footage (“B-roll,” in the jargon) so I can edit it into the main footage during cuts, narration flubs, or when I don’t follow with the camera well enough.

I’ve gotten good at doing the video with one or two takes. The better experts don’t need to memorize their lines if they just speak to the subject matter, and a couple of minor flubs will not hurt you. In fact, I suspect the help our experts become more “human” to the audience—and our service team members like to see what the engineer back in Irvine looks like.

And when experts drone on, I use my video editing tools to crop or cut during the final edit. (This is where the B-roll footage becomes important:  to cover abrupt changes.)

So when we have the video shot and “in the can” (I love that Hollywood talk), I’ll edit the video. You can use the higher-priced video-editing software packages if you’re familiar with them, but if you aren’t, I recommend you stick with something simpler and easier to learn, unless your company will pay for training or you have a coworker who can help.

I was a user of Adobe’s Premiere Pro, but our department budget allowed only for Premiere Elements, which I’ve been happy with. I export the final edited video to a high-quality WMV (Windows Media Video) format, which is easily displayed by our Windows-based laptops.

I also use Techsmith Camtasia to record the installation, configuration, and use of software. It’s a wonderfully simple program that captures every on-screen move, and you can narrate while recording or dub in narration later. This is great for getting programmers involved. (Also, you can edit it to shorten pauses or correct errors.) Adobe Captivate is a similar program.
Let’s skip ahead to where you have collected the finished videos, PDFs of a procedure or two, and maybe some drawings for reference.

Rather than release a disk just with a couple of files on it, I want to offer a more sophisticated media piece. It’s not really difficult. I use a web-page program such as FrontPage to create a simple HTML home page and have it automatically start when the disk is inserted into the user’s drive.

On that first page, I have a menu of links to the videos or other selections. I’ll add some photos as clickable links and select fonts that are resident on their computers. (Clickable icons can be created in Photoshop.) I make it look pleasing (mimicking other pages I have in my idea file), and I’m done.

On some feature-packed web seminars, I’ve included several layers of web pages that offer something more like a full website. I’ll add technical bulletins, original manufacturer manuals, and troubleshooting aids. I also offer links to external sites and contact e-mails to encourage the user to keep coming back to this CD as a resource.

If I had more space, I would continue about field testing your work, developing a collection of website seminar examples to provide ideas for the graphically challenged (like me), dealing with tough SMEs (and tougher managers) who want a larger and costlier seminar, and how to sneak in your first multimedia project when no one wants to give you the opportunity. But that gives me reasons to write more articles.

To sum up, we’ve developed a solid formula that delivers quality video-based seminars fast and inexpensively. We get rave reviews from our service staff and customers for their clarity and ease of use. Our major customers love it because they can see the quality of the training and that it’s uniformly delivered. My management likes it because we’re delivering effective service instruction without hurting our financial bottom line. And if they’re happy, I’m happy (and gainfully employed).

Guy D. Ball is a senior technical writer for EADS-North America Defense Test and Services in Irvine, CA. He has helped develop more than 80 multimedia presentations. His latest book, Early Santa Ana, was published this summer. He lives in Tustin, CA, and can be contacted at guyball@pacbell.net.