If you've ever thought about using video to complement your written User Assistance but not known where to start, this presentation might help.
The presentation outlines a recent project I undertook to use video screencasts to complement our in-product help and manuals.
The project involved replacing Sage CRM's old in-product training videos - some of which were up to 10 minutes long - with short, easy-to-follow, discrete pieces of product training.
The project involved introducing two types of video:
To introduce new product features
To guide users through more complex areas of the application
The shorter, faster paced videos that I produced have no captions, fewer recorded mouse clicks, and a single, unified, exciting watchable style.
The presentation explains my approach to recording the videos, including a number of important considerations, such as the whether the videos should contain voiceover, the importance of making them easily localizable, and whether they should be outsourced or produced in house.
12. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide What are we here to talk about? Recent project to replace our old, in-product training videos Video Process: Production Method Delivery Method Helpful tips
13. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide What was wrong with the old videos?
14. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Ranged from 04m35s to 10m37s
15. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Separated into task modules
16. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Launched in a separate skin created in Flash
20. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Not just a branding exercise. We wanted to Solve problems rather than provide product information: Discrete learning “chunks”
21. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Not just a branding exercise. We wanted to Solve problems rather than provide product information: Discrete learning “chunks” Shorter, faster paced
22. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Not just a branding exercise. We wanted to Solve problems rather than provide product information: Discrete learning “chunks” Shorter, faster paced No captions
23. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Not just a branding exercise. We wanted to Solve problems rather than provide product information: Discrete learning “chunks” Shorter, faster paced No captions Fewer mouse actions/clicks recorded on screen
24. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Not just a branding exercise. We wanted to Solve problems rather than provide product information: Discrete learning “chunks” Shorter, faster paced No captions Fewer mouse actions/clicks recorded on screen Full interface – no pan & scan or zooming
25. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Two types of video content: Presentation of new features
26. Using Video in UA: A Beginner’s Guide Two types of video content: Presentation of new features Top support issues (“pain points”) that required a 3rd Dimension
Additional InformationSage CRM has been in market since early 1999It is a full suite CRM system – sales, marketing, customer service and more!Sage CRM integrates into lots of Sage ERP products – in particular Sage Accpac in AsiaThe product is multi lingual – each user can see the product in their own languageThe product has multi currency support – each customer gets their quotes in their currency, and CRM reports all the data in a central currency
So we asked ourselves - are we giving our customers the information they need - and in the way they want it?One of the keys to our approach to user assistance is showing users how to solve problems rather than telling them simply what the product is or what it can do.We thought that using video to supplement our user assistance could help us achieve this.
So we asked ourselves - are we giving our customers the information they need - and in the way they want it?One of the keys to our approach to user assistance is showing users how to solve problems rather than telling them simply what the product is or what it can do.We thought that using video to supplement our user assistance could help us achieve this.
So we asked ourselves - are we giving our customers the information they need - and in the way they want it?One of the keys to our approach to user assistance is showing users how to solve problems rather than telling them simply what the product is or what it can do.We thought that using video to supplement our user assistance could help us achieve this.
So we asked ourselves - are we giving our customers the information they need - and in the way they want it?One of the keys to our approach to user assistance is showing users how to solve problems rather than telling them simply what the product is or what it can do.We thought that using video to supplement our user assistance could help us achieve this.
So we asked ourselves - are we giving our customers the information they need - and in the way they want it?One of the keys to our approach to user assistance is showing users how to solve problems rather than telling them simply what the product is or what it can do.We thought that using video to supplement our user assistance could help us achieve this.
We decided to focus on producing videos for three types of content:Getting Started in the software -Overview videos aimed at new sales, marketing and customer service users Presentation of new features- New feature overviews. - These videos can be functional overviews of new product features, but can play a key pre-sales role, explaining the features and benefits of a product. A well-produced feature outlining the benefits of the new feature. Because new features videos can be more sales, you should focus on the attributes of the new features that could help viewers decide between yours and a competitor’s products. Top Support issues that required a “third dimension”-CRM features/tasks that present frequent problems to users The aim of these videos was to add value to the existing help content by focusing on any specific areas that users were having difficulty with – the processes are well documented but some aspects were still confusing enough to warrant graphical representation. We liaised with the support team to come up with the top 5 issues in specific areas and produced videos around these areas to try to reduce support calls. [example here of Data Upload]
We decided to focus on producing videos for three types of content:Getting Started in the software -Overview videos aimed at new sales, marketing and customer service users Presentation of new features- New feature overviews. - These videos can be functional overviews of new product features, but can play a key pre-sales role, explaining the features and benefits of a product. A well-produced feature outlining the benefits of the new feature. Because new features videos can be more sales, you should focus on the attributes of the new features that could help viewers decide between yours and a competitor’s products. Top Support issues that required a “third dimension”-CRM features/tasks that present frequent problems to users The aim of these videos was to add value to the existing help content by focusing on any specific areas that users were having difficulty with – the processes are well documented but some aspects were still confusing enough to warrant graphical representation. We liaised with the support team to come up with the top 5 issues in specific areas and produced videos around these areas to try to reduce support calls. [example here of Data Upload]