7-Step Guide to Making Instructional Web Design Videos

Whether you are a blogger sharing web design tricks, or you teach web design and want to create a video lecture, you must be wondering how you can create a cool professional-looking instructional video on your own. And today you will find the answer - we are going to give you 7 useful tips which you can implement right away. Now take your pen and notebook out of your drawer, and we’ll begin. 

1. Define Your Target Audience  

To find your target audience, you also need to monitor who interacts with your content now and what kind of people follow you already. As a web design video maker, you have to know whether your current audience includes beginner design enthusiasts or professionals with extensive experience.

The first question you need to ask yourself is “Who is going to watch this video?”. How old are they? Do they study or work? What kind of videos do they typically watch? You should ask yourself as many questions as you can to figure out who is most likely to be interested in your content. It will define many aspects of your instruction video. For instance, how long it’s going to be, what it should look like, what information should be included, and so on. 

2. Determine the Purpose of the Video

Make sure you know the learning objectives and what you want your subscribers to achieve. The goals of your instructional video can be different. For example, it might be used for review, to introduce new content, or to get deeper on the topic you’ve covered earlier. In your video, you can share facts, talk about concepts, share your experience, or simply teach some skills.

It is important to make the aim of your instructional videos clear to help your viewers focus on the content better. As a result, you’ll also find out what information you want to share exactly, and how. 

3. Prepare a Video Script

Once you know what and whom you are making the video for, you can get down to writing the script. Quality instruction videos are not the best place for improvisation, so you need to prepare them properly. It will help you save a great deal of time while shooting, thus you’ll spend less money on location rental. Besides, it’s cheaper to fix the script than to refilm the whole episode. Most importantly, you won’t forget about any of the important aspects you were going to mention. Here are a few common mistakes you should avoid while writing your video script. 

Firstly, don’t use complicated grammatical structures like passive voice - such speech might be hard to comprehend. Remember, they are going to listen to you, not read your text, so make sure you sound natural. To do that, read your script aloud a few times, perhaps, even in front of your friends or colleagues. Alternatively, you can record yourself and check it yourself. Secondly, don’t make it too long - keep it short and simple. Once your viewers know where you’re going, they sure will skip ahead or skip your video entirely. You don’t want them to miss some key details, do you? Then be sure to omit all the wishy-washy chunks of your text. Finally, avoid irrelevant jargon. Make your script easy to follow - build your narration as if you are explaining the topic to your friend. 

4. Write a Video Storyboard 

There is another trick which will save you a lot of time - using a storyboard. It will basically help you visualize your script, which is especially important for you as a web design video maker. Both you and viewers are going to pay attention to the way your episode looks. With a storyboard in your hands, you can also give clearer instructions to your production team members. 

We highly recommend making sketches for each part of the video. When both sketches and script are ready, you should work on matching the narration with the picture on the screen. For example, you can create a table with the action in your instructional video described in one column and your voice comments in another column. Add pictures, screenshots, or sketches to the table if needed. The more details you include, the better - make notes on the background music, mention the special effects you would like to use, and so on. 

5. Choose the Suitable Length of the Video

Nobody can say for sure how long a video should last. But keep in mind that if your episode is too short, your subscribers might think there will be little useful information. Besides, our attention span is getting shorter and shorter due to the impact of social media. Attention span can depend on the age as well, e.g. children have an attention span of 10-20 minutes, while 16-year-olds’ attention span can last up to 50 minutes. So figure out the age of your audience first. Too lengthy content might also seem rather overwhelming and intimidating. The size of your video also varies according to the type of content: how-to, tutorial, explainer videos, and so on. For example, experts say tutorials and how-to videos should be 1-10 minutes long. 

Moreover, consider the distribution channels you are going to use since they also have different formats. For instance, TikTok videos and Instagram reels typically last about 16 seconds, YouTube episodes are about 15 minutes long, etc. 

6. Calculate the Budget for Your Video

One of the most important steps you need to take in advance is calculating your shooting and post-production budget. For starters, find out what kind of equipment you’ll need and how much it will cost. Perhaps, you won’t have to buy a part of it and simply borrow from your colleagues. What’s more, you might need to spend some money on a studio where you want to shoot your video, or you might do it elsewhere for free but you’ll still have traveling expenses to take care of. However, nowadays, you can record a whole movie using a mobile phone, and no matter where you shoot and what camera you have, you will need to edit your footage after all. So make sure to include it in your budget list, too. Apart from equipment costs, location rental, and post-processing, you should also take into consideration the crew size - are you going to hire actors, stylists, graphic designers, and script writers, or are you doing everything on your own?

7. Edit Your Instructional Video

Don’t worry if you are on a low budget, and can’t afford to hire a professional videographer and a video editor. You can fine-tune your footage on your own with a computer program or even a mobile app. There are tons of them available for both newbies and pros which also differ in their cost - there are expensive, low-cost, and even free video editors. Here are 3 programs that will help you take your instructional video to a new level even if you have never edited anything before. 

Adobe Premiere Pro is the first video editing software that comes to mind. It is a well-known program used for advanced montage. It offers such features as auto color correction, adding titles, applying animations, saving presets, audio adjustment, and so on. Experienced users will like multi-camera editing, auto audio synchronizing, multiple formats support, etc. Nevertheless, video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro is rather costly. The Premiere Pro pricing plan ranges from $20.99 - $31.49 per month. Alternatively, you might like to pay the subscription yearly, then you can purchase it for $239.88 per year.

If you’d like to invest less money and time to figure out a program, then you can try DaVinci Resolve. The software allows you to tweak your videos with context sensitive automatic trimming tools, 2D and 3D animated titles, transitions, change the speed of the footage, and work on the same projects together with your team members. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can either use it for free, or purchase the $295-version to get access to resolution higher than 4K, stereoscopic 3D tools, temporal and spatial noise reduction, and more.

Finally, check out Clipify in case you want a free beginner-friendly video editor rich in pro-level tools. Not only does it let you make simple adjustments like trimming, cropping, muting, or adding funky effects and transitions, but also create professional-looking videos - stabilize shaky footage, zoom in on a video, change the background, add music or a voice-over. You can even record voice comments for your instructional video right in the program - so handy. Other features you might find useful are adding titles, captions, inserting your logo, and saving the new file in such formats as HD, AVI, MP4, MOV, and even YouTube and Facebook videos for instant sharing on social media. 

As you can see, there are lots of nuances to take into account when creating an instructional web design video. We’ve shared 7 tips that we hope you’ll find useful. But most importantly, you have knowledge and ideas to share. So go ahead and make your video today.