Knowing Your Audience

For video documentation to be effective, it's important to know what developers look for in documentation. A developer's level of experience with the topic and the complexity of the task they want to complete will effect which format of documentation is preferred.

Developers "want need-to-know information, not nice-to-know information. Because of this, few users are interested in long tutorials or hours in a classroom. They want to begin coding immediately and be directed to the specific help section that answers their specific coding problem" (Broehme et all. 2002, 138). The ability to use documentation for quick reference becomes very crucial: "programmers will not read manuals from start to finish but will refer to them if they have a problem" (Broehme et all. 2002, 139). Most likely, a long series of videos will not be used in their entirety by an individual; the viewer is only interested in very specific information.

One study found that the following were "most contributing to a documents' effectiveness: content, how up-to-date it is, availability, and use of examples" (Alexander, Ralph and Rosso 2015, 3). If the documentation found was outdated or did now show how to use what it was discussing then the documentation was not as useful. Examples and code samples are very valuable to developers, as it saves them typing time and helps them find a solution faster.

Video documentation is generally liked as a documentation format by developers. Many developers feel video documentation has "a significant advantage in that learning is less impersonal and there is a sense of social presence" (Despotakis and Palaigeorgiou 2015, 87). Video documentation "affords the opportunity to present a sometimes dry subject such as software standards with enthusiasm and even passion" (Demarco and Geertgens 1990, 128). It seems that developers turn to video documentation not only to gather information, but because it is a more stimulating format.

Although developers may enjoy watching video documentation, they are also affected by its weaknesses. Searchability is often lacking in video documentation; developers must watch "the whole video and hope that it contains the information they are looking for, or [move] on to a different piece of content.... Another limitation of screencasts is that some forms of information are more easily digested as text. Specifically, explicit and formal knowledge is easier to codify in a written form" (Bergen, MacLeod and Storey 2015, 112). Since developers want to find information quickly, videos are not a good format for information that is meant to be used for reference. The lack of searchability and quick viewing makes video a poor choice in these situations.

From this, we can conclude the following are keys to successful video documentation:

1. A narrow focus of topic
2. Code samples and examples
3. Social presence
4. Searchability
5. Brevity