kismetism

The one thing I really hate about the “new web” (or web 2.0 or video generation or whatever the hell term you prefer)…

The proliferation of video tutorials over text.

It’s a steadily increasing irritation… that I’ll go to a website for a service of some sort, expecting to look up something technical, and instead I encounter an abstract listing of topics and a video for each one that guides the user through using a particular feature.

EVERY time I see this, I want to scream. (Not to mention, immediately turn away to find another source.) I do not want to sit through your ten minute video, waiting to hear about the tiny snippet of information that I am interested in which, let’s face it, is probably too advanced or irrelevant to be part of your newbie guide video anyway.

I am sure there are plenty of people out there who are benefiting from these videos, especially if they are really so new to the service that they absolutely need a visual guide to help them understand every aspect. But cynically I believe that tutorial videos are a symptom of the bigger problem, that people’s ability to communicate clearly through written text is deteriorating.

For some types of people, I am sure that it is less effort to film a short video of the usage of a feature than it is to write several clear paragraphs about it. And for similar people, it is less effort to watch a video than it is to parse text.