Scribing Research - How to Create Stand out Video Scribing

Or how it's handy when the studies and stories buddy up

When Sean James proposed a scribe video for his client's homepage, he was taking a risk.
He didn't know about the research behind whiteboard animation. He had never used VideoScribe before.

Running a small media company, Sean's margins were tight, and any new technology needed to pay for itself, yesterday. But he decided it was worth a shot.

Even in his most optimistic mood, he could not have predicted the result.

Simply adding a scribe video to the client's landing page lowered the bounce rate by a third.

The scribe increased the average time that visitors stayed on the page by 50%.

And that was not the best part.

By adding the scribe video, Sean managed to double his client's revenue to $200,000.

One video. $100,000.


The psychology behind the pizazz

Sean James didn't know it, but the research backs him up.

In twenty years of research, cognitive psychologist Richard E Mayer and his colleagues
found combining graphics with a voiceover to be far and away the most effective way of communicating information.


In fact, Mayer concluded that multisensory learning improves problem solving by 50-
75%.15

Say, for example, you divide a class in three. The first group of students are taught using hearing alone. The second set are taught the same information, but using only their sight. The third set are taught using both hearing and sight.

Who learns the most? Who learns the best? Each time Mayer ran this experiment, the
students taught in multisensory environments outperformed their peers. They had more
accurate recall, their recall had better resolution, and they retained the information for longer.

Mayer also discovered that:


• People learn best when corresponding words and pictures are presented closely
together

• People learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on-
screen text

• People learn better when extraneous material is excluded i.e. the simpler the better


As you'll notice, These are pretty much the central tenets of video scribing

Scribes are multisensory 

Watching a scribe is a multisensory experience, which results in much better
understanding and retention. A scribe reveals information gradually, sparking your curiosity and allowing you to process the information bit by bit.

The viewer completion effect kicks in. You process the message at a deeper level and crucially, you're more likely to remember it - and respond.

That's what Sean James discovered to his amazement.

And that's what Sparkol found when they conducted their own tests of the whiteboard video style.