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Photo by sarah baker

Video tutorials are the latest craze that have taken the internet by storm. With the emergence of simple-to-use video software, it has never been easier to create and edit custom videos. You can find a video tutorial on almost any topic. But is this necessarily a good thing? Video tutorials are quite easy to follow as they provide both audio and visual instruction in real time. But for one reason or another, I have never really been a fan of video tutorials. While I appreciate and respect that video tutorials can make learning easier, I also find them to be awkward and inflexible at times.

Lets discuss some of the key differences between video tutorials over traditional tutorials:

  • Video tutorials can take a longer time to load compared to traditional tutorial formats. Video tutorials may require special plug ins or programs before the user can view them. In addition, video tutorials will take up more bandwidth.

  • Traditional tutorials can be easier to navigate. With a video tutorial, you are forced to start from the beginning. If you try to skip forward, you have no idea what you have missed. In a traditional tutorial, you can navigate to the portion that you want to focus on.

  • You can copy and paste lines of code or text within a traditional tutorial. With a video tutorial, you have to manually type in the code or text.

  • It’s easier to get a quick overview of a traditional tutorial because you can browse all the information quickly. It’s no fun to watch a 30 minutes tutorial when all you really need is to focus on one particular part.

  • Video tutorials force the user to move at one pace, which is the speed that the video is playing at. With a traditional tutorial, you can move as fast or slow as you desire.

  • Video tutorials have two huge advantage, which are video and audio. Having video and audio allows the tutorial to convey a sequence of complex instructions or to present ideas that can be difficult to grasp when using a traditional format.

When to use a video tutorial vs a traditional tutorial

In general, the more complex a tutorial is, the more suited it is for video. If there are a lot of complicated steps involved in a procedure, it is probably easier to do it in a video format. It may even be a good idea to use a small video within a tutorial, as opposed to making the entire tutorial a video.

Personally, I prefer traditional tutorials because I can control the speed at which I go through the tutorial. But I have encountered many video tutorials that have undoubtedly been very useful.