Speed now & then (Space and time?)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 11:36 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> On 29 March 2018 at 21:35, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> MP4s mean that now, not only does it take MUCH longer to create the
>> document, we can now waste MUCH more of the reader's time!
>> I find it very annoying that when GOOGLE'ing to find a simple answer, many
>> of the first hits are YouTube.
>
> I got a room full of very surprised looks a couple of years ago,
> interviewing for a tech-writer position, when I said that I hated
> online videos as instructions, finding them far too slow and
> inefficient.

I totally agree.  I read faster than most people talk and I retain
more information.  I'd much rather read 1,000 words than watch a 3
minute video.

> This concept shocked everyone in the room, AFAICT.

Not surprising given how many generations have now grown up watching
TV as their major input mode.

> Then I realised something -- something connected with my career change
> to tech writing.
>
> A lot of people _can't_ express themselves in text. Some don't care
> and let fly with all their spelling and grammatical errors,
> mostly-missing-and-the-rest-incorrect punctuation etc.

Yes.  People can ramble into a mobile phone and upload to YouTube but
actually _writing_ the same process... not everyone is a writer.

There are times when video instruction makes sense - describing, for
example, a chemical reaction that produces major visible change in a
few moments is better to watch than to try to describe.  The vast
majority of stuff?  Teaching programming?  I don't want to watch 2
hours of someone editing text... give me words and perhaps a
screenshot or two if there's something too complicated to simply write
about.

I've taken several MOOCs.  The only saving grace is the 2X and 4X
buttons on playback.

-ethan