Scott Berkun just posted a teaser video for his new book Confessions of a Public Speaker on his blog. My initial impression was that it was an exciting and quirky ad that effectively conveyed his onstage personality.
I was surprised to find that this 94 second video sparked an interesting discussion centered on how the rapid display of text, which is matched to Scott’s speech, increases the cognitive load on the viewer and therefore distracts from the message. This wasn’t my personal experience, but the fact that there was near consensus amongst the other very knowledgeable contributors, made me curious.
I decided to watch the video again and interestingly, I found the text so disturbing I had to look away a time or two. Was it because I was being more analytical? Or, was it simply a difference in context (my task load etc.)
So, the question – what would a random sample of people think? Being a true geek, I ran a quick test on a favorite service of mine – Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. $2 and 30 minutes later I had some (admittedly unscientific) data. 20 people (who presumably were unfamiliar with Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory or Mayer’s Theory of Multimedia Learning) watched the video and answered a simple three question survey:
- What did you learn / take-away from this video?
- What did you like about the video?
- What did you dislike about the video?
75% of respondents clearly displayed that they got the primary message. The comments of the remaining entries were too general to make a judgment regarding how much got through (e.g., “An advertisement for a book about improving your public speaking skills.”).
25% unequivocally stated they liked the use of text in the video
50% stated that they disliked or were in some way conflicted about the use of text
Here is a sample of the responses:
Learned: I learned that the guy speaking in the video has written a book on his experiences being a public speaker, what the mistakes he has made were and how to do the right things to become a good public speaker. I learned that this book may help me become a better public speaker.
Pro: I liked the natural way it was presented by the person in the video and the very quick way he was able to put his points across.
Con: I disliked the popping up of text, while the person was speaking. It seemed good in the beginning, but the popping up of the text lasted too long and created a fake feeling of coolness which introduced a level of “visual patronizing”. What I mean by that, is that most of the text that popped up was not really profound, and thus, I was wondering while watching it why emphasize all of what he was saying, rather than just the important points.
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Learned: I learned that this book exists, and that it appears to be pretty well recommended as an aid to public speaking.
Pro: It held my interest, with the music and graphics. I think I liked the transcription of what was being said, though I’m not 100 % on it.
Con: Its strengths could border on weaknesses — it was very busy and in-your-face, which depending on my mood could have been irritating. The chicken sound was a little much, too.
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Learned: I learned that Scott Berkun has a new book out on public speaking. Sounds like the book could help you if you think you are a boring speaker. I’d be interested to know how this book would help with family communication.
Pro: Scott is very engaging without special visual effects but I liked being able to read and hear the message at the same time.
Con: I wanted to hear one example of how he messed up! I thought that it was a little short in regard to the content of the book.
What can we make of this data? My guess is that the use of text created a feeling of excitement (which viewers liked) but that most were overwhelmed. Those in the latter group would clearly have suffered if the information being conveyed had any substantial complexity. As suggested by Kathy Sierra (of Creating Passionate Users), Olivia Mitchell, Chris Atherton, and others, there are likely ways to create the same excitement without the associated risk of overload.
If your interested, the raw survey data can be found here.
Judge for yourself.
Hey TJ,
I actually agreed with you on Scott’s blog… my previous comment said, “Doubt it matters for a video of this size”. My issue is that this is not just ANY promo video, but a promo *about* the topic of presentations, so I’m holding it to a different standard for setting an example.
Having been in this situation myself — presenting *on* presenting — we don’t have the luxury of giving disclaimers around the context of the techniques we use. So, I completely agree that while *in this case* the technique is not really a problem, as a general principle, it IS. The other reason this matters to me is because cognitive load is probably the single biggest problem in technical books published by others including O’Reilly, and I never miss a chance to call it out, even–in this case–when it’s probably doing no harm.
I do urge us all to find better ways to up the excitement *without* increasing cognitive load. This technique does not scale.
So happy you commented and posted, though — it gave me a chance to modify my earlier drama