Tutorial Cause and Effect

Tutorials are not like other videos in that they exist for a very specific purpose.  The goal of a tutorial is to create something that teaches you how to accomplish a goal.  It should:

• explain to people how to use a service correctly
• show where all the buttons on the screen are located
• describe the process chronologically from start to finish
• save new users the trouble of making a mistake that everyone might see
• keep people from doing things incorrectly over and over

Without a good tutorial, your product has less of this sort of safeguard against misunderstanding.  Additional features to create a complete tutorial are:  

• opening screen (10 seconds) describes what the video will teach
• closing screen (similar to opening screen). 

What's not a good idea?

• showing people video screen shots but not describing a process

Cause:  People want to learn how to do something.
Effect:   People actually start doing it.  

Here is an example of a full-circle tutorial cause and effect.

Cause

Effect:  The audience for whom the tutorial was recommended actually learned the process and began using it to display photographs on their photo blog.  http://www.ilovenewhaven.org/2012/10/strong-school-randallized-slideshow-20.html