Role of Videos in Modern Technical Writing

In the old format of the web, text, and images dominated the internet because of inherent bandwidth limitations of the internet. Given the speed and bandwidth of current internet infrastructure, videos are dominating. Videos play an important role in how we learn and understand. Videos are powerful storytelling tool as provides stronger engagement with content. In technical writing, videos are essential to articulate complex workflows through visual mediums whereby workflows can be narrated with operational flows. Then, it becomes easy for your audience to register the flow and undertake the right steps to accomplish technical writers can use videos for the following scenarios

• Explaining concepts
• Articulating the “How-to” process
• Diagnosing any issues

The modern audience is very tech-savvy and aware of YouTube / Shorts / Reels. Thus, watching videos on a technical documentation site feels natural to them, and prefer the consumption of new knowledge in the video format.

Videos in software documentation

In software documentation, videos can be very useful in many scenarios. It is mostly used for showing the audience “how-to”. Instead of writing a step-by-step process/procedure on how to configure a particular feature, videos become a powerful medium to present the same information visually. This not only increases video engagement but it registers those configuration steps in your audience’s mind so that they can undertake the tasks effortlessly. These “how-to” videos also increase product’s feature adoption.

Videos also play a huge role in helping customer support agents in delivering solutions to customer support tickets. If all troubleshooting guides are converted into an interactive video, it becomes easy for customer support agents to share relevant videos. These videos reduce the resolution time thus increasing customer satisfaction.

Tutorial videos are great for learning and developing of new skills. Many software companies offer tutorial videos so that their customers can learn about their product offerings and technology to solve their business problems. Tutorial videos serve as an asset to the software company in gaining traction in their ecosystem and promoting inclusive learning. These tutorial videos can also be embedded into the product, thus making them an integral part of your product strategy. Tutorial videos can be made as part of your documentation site, boosting your customer educational effort. Videos uploaded to popular sites such as YouTube and Vimeo help to drive traffic to your website indirectly as they get ranked for popular keywords. These videos also increase your brand visibility and enhance your brand value.

Videos in user manuals

User manuals are fundamental to many hardware product companies as they explain how to assemble a product, configure it, or troubleshoot any issues with it. Most user manuals are printed and come along with a product as part of the product offering. These manuals are printed because of regulatory and compliance requirements in the region where the companies operate. These user manuals are printed because of regulatory and compliance requirements in the region the companies operate. Most of the time, customers throw away these printed manuals as technicians usually install the product.

There are times when the product does not work as intended. Most of the customers try to troubleshoot the problem using the internet. If the printed user manual is not available on the internet, then customers must call the trained technician for support. However, if the user manual is made into a video, and available on the company’s website (also in major video hosting services), then it becomes easy for customers to troubleshoot the problem by themselves. Any common issues with your product can be made into a video. Thus, it increases the self-service rate boosting your customer satisfaction.

Many companies, such as Ikea, Bosch, and so on, produce many product assembling and troubleshooting videos respectively. These videos are available on YouTube to help their customers self-serve.

Image showing Ikeas assembly instructions

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Situations to use videos

Videos are a powerful medium to use as it engages all our senses. It has visual elements, sounds, and text. This makes it a powerful storytelling medium. It should be used on certain scenarios such as

• Information density

  Short videos can create an impact by providing quick solutions. Removing intros and outros will help your customers engage with your video content. It is recommended not to pack too much information into short videos as your customers might be overwhelmed by information density.

• Time interval

  It is recommended to create “how-to” and troubleshooting videos of length 1 – 3 minutes. Tutorial videos can be as long as 5 minutes. Instead of creating one lengthy video, break them into a few short videos.

• Content

  Instead of showing stock images, and graphics, showing a real demo would enhance content quality and increase the authenticity of the solution provided in the video

Pros and Cons

These are some benefits of using videos

• Videos help your customers learn about your product and services; This enhances product adoption
• Videos embedded into your product and services help with customer engagement and satisfaction
• Videos help company’s internal stakeholders to disseminate information more effectively to different external stakeholders

These are some of the drawbacks of utilizing videos

• For a software company, many videos quickly go out of date as new features are being introduced. Thus, your instructional designers must update those videos more frequently, adding cost and time
• If your software is going through a lot of UX changes because of the quick release cycle, it becomes necessary to refresh your videos regularly
• Producing videos takes time and cost; Making professional videos takes more time as it involves a meticulous editing process

Conclusion

Modern customers prefer more videos rather than reading textual information. Videos generate more customer engagement and increase customer satisfaction. Videos also provide a medium to generate traffic to your websites. This could also be considered as lead-generation engine. Videos enhance your brand visibility. Moreover, videos help your market ecosystem to learn and upskill. Using videos effectively leads to brand loyalty in the long term.

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