Video tutorials are a great way to help users solve complex issues quickly. With video tutorials becoming a common medium for presenting step-by-step procedures, it’s vital that the creators of this medium understand how to create high-quality content for the audiences that they would like to engage. This article provides a series of tips that you should follow when creating new video tutorials for Mozilla’s users.

Ensure that your topic is suitable for a video tutorial

When creating new videos, you should always ask yourself: Does this subject matter require a video tutorial?

Sometimes a simple “how to” article is sufficient enough. However, if the content is complex or you want to showcase a new feature, then a new video tutorial would be considered valuable to most users.

Create a solid plan prior to recording your video tutorial

It’s extremely important that you think about the content that you want to include in your video tutorial. The best way to do this is by creating a storyboard. A storyboard is a working document that helps video creators conceptualize and visualize the content that they want to include in their video. A storyboard will help you do the following:

• Determine which content is relevant and how it should be organized in your video tutorial
• Determine the length of each segment, which will help you plan the entire length of your video tutorial
• Determine which areas of your video tutorial will require captions or effects so that you can focus on that area for a longer period of time when recording

You can create a custom storyboard or go to https://theplot.io/free-storyboard-templates/ and download an existing template.

Keep it short and focused

Try to keep all videos under five minutes as a general rule. You may not be able to keep the attention of your audience if your videos are over five minutes. Lastly, be sure to focus on key areas that you are trying to demonstrate, which will require that you remain on a particular window or hover on an icon for a longer period of time.

Ensure that the resolution and audio quality is top notch

A video tutorial that contains poor resolution and/or audio quality is useless to any user. It’s easier to fix these issues prior to submitting your video for final editing since Camtasia doesn’t offer many options for enhancing original video files.