Top 12 Interactive Video Design Mistakes
Why are interactive videos so important for e-learning? Interactive videos are the soul of any instructional design. Online course users have noticed a boost in learning from videos included in eLearning. Videos reinforce core concepts and make learning more memorable. However, instructors might end up misusing this powerful tool if they don't prepare and use it cautiously.
Education has been greatly affected by the evolution of technology. As time passes, more institutions are switching to online courses from classroom material. There are several reasons behind the rapid evolution of the education system, including all the advantages that eLearning has to offer institutes, learners, and educators. Besides all these benefits, there are a few interactive video design mistakes that can impede your success.
Read our blog on Do These to Get People to Watch Your Video Till the End for more information.
Top 12 Interactive Video Design Mistakes to Avoid
It is one of the most challenging things for teachers to keep students' attention throughout a course or lesson. And when we talk about developing interactive video design, this becomes even more obvious. Hence, to prevent you from continuing in the wrong direction, here is a list of 12 interactive video design mistakes instructional design authors must consider.
1. Making Videos that are too Long
There is a good chance that you have a bunch of interesting information to share with the learners, and you would like to include it all in one video. However, learners' attention spans are very limited; therefore, you need to be careful. The length of a video that exceeds five minutes will likely reduce students' interest considerably. You can still come up with a lot of information and an attention-grabbing interactive video simply by dividing the content into smaller chunks having standalone content.
Read our blog on Tips to Hook Your Audience in the First 5 seconds for more information.
2. Making Heavy-sized Videos
Although good quality videos are an important part of e-learning videos, having them of such a good quality that the file size becomes so large is another error among interactive design mistakes that most authors make. Such videos become hard to download and thus frustrate the learners. So make sure to compress the video if it is too large or provide learners with lower-resolution versions.
3. Overloading the Videos with Text
Common interactive video design mistakes also include text-heavy lessons or modules. Make sure that your slides or documents don't contain too much text. Adding a lot of text to your videos can be boring and may cause cognitive overload for the students. Avoid presenting irrelevant or excessive information.
It’s always a good idea to be very specific and use simple, easy-to-understand language. Provide more digestible content by breaking heavy concepts into smaller chunks or using different approaches like infographics, charts, etc. Ensure that your eLearning course does not highly rely on text but includes a variety of content types.
Cinema8 helps you add images, charts, survey forms, branching scenarios, etc., easily in your module so you can come up with a highly interactive video for your learners.
Read our blog on 12 Common E-learning Mistakes You Should Avoid for more information.
4. Using Low-quality Graphics
Indeed you can make your e-learning course more engaging and effective by incorporating relevant graphics and images. But, if you use poor-quality images and graphics, your learners are likely to lose interest very quickly.
However, you need to remember that the excessive use of irrelevant or even relevant images can distract your learners and make learning difficult for them. To avoid interactive video design mistakes, ensure that you make a balance between the text and graphics. Use relevant, good-quality graphics and give your students the best learning experience.
5. Providing Poor-quality Content
Providing low-quality content will have the same effect as providing low-quality visuals and will easily make your students lose interest real quick. Your video content should be of the highest quality. Post production reviewing will ensure that the entire content is correct and will help you fix any grammatical or structural errors you might have made.
If you neglect to fix these few errors, your learners will doubt the validity of your course, and you will lose credibility. Therefore, it’s important to include high-quality content to avoid common interactive video design mistakes and provide value to the learner.
6. Not Using Interactive Elements
If your instructional design video doesn’t have interactive elements, it will fail to achieve the goal. Real-life scenarios, images, charts, branching scenarios, clickable areas, forms, etc. are vital for developing interactive videos. If your videos lack such elements, the learners won’t be able to interact and engage with the course. This is why the best approach is to add interactive elements to your eLearning courses to make students feel more engaged.
Additionally, incorporating interactive elements into your e-learning course will help you break down difficult concepts in a way that makes them digestible for students of various learning styles.
7. Not Knowing Who Your Target Audience is
Instructional design authors often overlook the importance of researching their target audience, which is among the biggest interactive design mistakes. The time you take to understand your target audience and build audience personas is an important part of developing an interactive video. It is important to establish a clear understanding of the people you're creating the course for. You should be aware of their interests, experience level, and education.
By understanding who your audience is, you can create high-quality content that will motivate and challenge your learners to continue learning and find your course valuable.
You won't be able to make your course as impactful as it could be if you skip this step. The course's structure and content won't appeal to your audience.
8. Videos are Poorly Prepared
Before you begin recording your video, make sure all the details are in order. The first thing you should do is ensure your content is coherent and concise. The supporting systems must be well-established and stable. It is also important to eliminate unexpected sounds or background noises.
Meanwhile, if you plan to add captions or narration afterward, you should prepare all of the scripts in advance. Learners' cognitive abilities will be greatly enhanced by well-designed videos. So, regardless of how time-consuming the editing process might be, don't ever upload a messy video.
9. Using Unattractive Colors
The colors we use have the power to stir our emotions and communicate our meaning. As a result, colors play an important role in instructional design. When using color in online learning, be aware of the mood or feeling you want to evoke. So you can prevent inducing a mood that contradicts your goals.
Additionally, you should stick to only two or three colors in your e-learning video since more than three colors will appear unorganized and chaotic. Also, using a lot of different colors in a single video will distract the learners and prevent them from understanding the content.
To learn more about the use of colors in instructional design, read our blog on Color Theory - How to Use Colors in Design.
10. Adding Too High or Wrong Background Music
Another point to consider when talking about interactive video design mistakes is the background music or sound. There is a lot of debate on whether to add music or sound in e-learning videos. In our opinion, we should add some light music to videos to bring some life to them.
You can set the mood and tone for your instructional video by using background music. It contributes to a more engaging learning experience. In fact, even for topics many people disinterest in, a groovy background track can keep them engaged. It was also found that music can be used for memory retrieval. However, it is worth noting that the music isn’t too high to distract the learners.
If music is to be used, it needs to blend into the background and be at a level that is comfortable for learners and does not distract from the content of the video.
11. Video Having no Closed Captions
Hearing the whole thing is not sufficient for learners to grasp the concept. Having difficulty understanding actors' pronunciations or learning in an unfavorable environment may make it difficult for students to gather information, particularly if their native language is not the voiceover language. Thus, closed captioning has now become an essential component of all online courses.
12. Choosing the Wrong Tool
Among these interactive video design mistakes, another common error instructional design authors make is working on the wrong tool. Doesn’t matter how great your content is, how attractive your graphics may be, or how proper other things are; your video will not be interactive if you haven’t chosen the right tool.
Choosing an experienced, dependable company that can help you with the rollout is crucial when your organization is searching for a video tool instructional design.
Try avoiding companies that have the following characteristics:
Not Providing Accessible Content
It is essential that online learning is accessible to all students, regardless of their academic proficiency and needs. Therefore, it is essential that you opt for a tool that easily provides accessibility features for every student’s use.
Using Cinema8, users have access to established accessibility workflows, the most recent captioning tools, and a reputation for keeping up with accessibility developments.
Having trouble creating or editing engaging content
The tool cannot help students or staff if faculty cannot easily create or edit engaging content. It is also important to avoid tools that have the capacity to create engaging content but are difficult to use.
It should be incredibly simple to create video content for online learning, with editing that content being as simple as dragging and dropping. Faculty already have a lot of stress to deal with; therefore, video tools need to be simple and easy to learn and operate.
Make sure the tool you choose provides easy-to-use features to create interactive videos, including special effects, video quizzes, and more. With Cinema8, you can make things easier and a lot more fun!
An inflexible company or tool
Despite the fact that some companies may offer more features than others, this does not necessarily mean that they're better.
Video tools that are overly complex and difficult to use may actually discourage staff from using or producing videos with them at all. Instructors have few hours to devote to learning all the complex features of a video tool, and they can't afford to spend that time.
Cinema8 is a highly flexible tool, and your faculty can easily adapt to it. Additionally, it can very easily integrate with tools you may already use, like Zoom or LMS. So, faculty can keep using the tools and teaching methods they are accustomed to.
An inexperienced or new company
In spite of the fact that newer online learning companies might seem cool, they have little experience in understanding the individual requirements and needs of educators and students engaged in online learning. Additionally, smaller startups or newer companies are unlikely to have the resources to support you in the long run.
They are more likely to experience server downtime as their businesses grow and develop. Having this problem will make recording videos difficult, and students will be unable to access the material. Moreover, these companies often plan to sell the platform or tool, which can lead to unnecessary stress for students and faculty.
Cinema8 is an experienced and well-established company, having a proven track record of working with several institutions for years. It has been providing creative and new solutions to the dynamic e-learning environment.
Lack of measurement tools
When implementing a video tool, how can you tell whether it was a success when the company you have chosen doesn’t provide tools for the measurement of student progress and video success? It will become difficult for you to measure success and make improvements where necessary.
Cinema8 allows users to measure student engagement and progress along with informing you about video’s watch time and a lot more.
Learn more about The Importance of Cinema8 Video Analytics by reading our blog post.
Bottomline
That's all there is to it! With the right tools and decisions, you will never make interactive video design mistakes that will put you at a disadvantage. Interactive elements, attractive colors, timing, and engaging content are the key components of any successful instructional design video.