Project Management’eur

business application developers

Business application developers spend a great deal of time planning the functionality and user interface for their applications in order to create a tool designed to assist the business in implementing its business objectives. Historically written user documentation is created as part of the application in order to convey to the application users how to use the application to achieve the business objective. This is because developers know that no matter how well the application is designed, if the application users don’t know how to effectively use the application to meet the business need, then the ROI in the software development or purchase is diminished, thus diminishing the business’s ability to operate efficiently or effectively. But no matter how carefully the documentation is written and organized, some users still have trouble gleaning the needed knowledge about operating the software from it.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. That is why many developers are augmenting their documentation with video tutorials. In a video tutorial, the audio can address business functions and objectives while showing interactive use of the software to accomplish the functionality. Well planned videos will carefully script the audio dialog to relate the software functionality to the business objective and describe and display its use in language that the end user can understand and at a pace that allows users with first time exposure to the application can grasp. The screen displays should be readable, even if zooming is required at times to highlight the information being discussed. Although music may be added to a video for style, it should not detract from the audio message. This visual and audio input uses more of the viewers’ senses than words alone and can help deliver the instructions more effectively than words alone.

Windsong Enterprises uses these principles and others to create effective software instructional videos.