Being an on-off amateur photographer, one of the first things I installed on my MacBook Pro was Aperture. Since I’m new to Aperture, I decided to check out the tutorials link.
Clicking the link opened up my browser and navigated me to the Aperture Tutorial website with numerous videos about 1 to 3 minutes long. After watching a couple of videos, I realized how easy it is to learn from this website.
Now I’ve seen many webcast/video tutorials before, especially Microsoft ones. What makes the Apple one different, and better than the Microsoft ones?
The tutorial website is really well designed. True to Apple’s design, there is no clutter on the website and it is clear where you go and how to select videos to watch. Compare this with Microsoft’s Office website:
Seriously, how long will it take you to find the tutorials link on that page? There’s even advertisements on the Office homepage!
Another important factor to easy web learning is short and to the point videos. There is no marketing fluff in Apple’s tutorial videos. When you click on a video, you know exactly what you are watching. Each video shows you what the feature is and how to perform it and quickly ends.
Once again, let’s compare to Microsoft’s Office website. After 20-30 seconds of hunting, I finally find the Training link. From there I click on the “Popular” link showing a video on “SharePoint document libraries”. Now being on a Mac, I don’t have Windows Media Player to play the video, but just looking at that page with the “20-30 minutes” timer makes me want to close the browser. This is actually pretty good for a Microsoft video as normally Microsoft videos that I’ve watched in the past are over an hour long minimum!
Why are long videos useless? First of all, everyone is busy so no one has the time nor the patience to sit through an hour-long lecture. Second, long videos are long typically because it’s jam packed with lots of information. Thus it’s really easy to get overwhelmed and forget most of what was discussed in the video.
Another nice feature of Apple’s tutorial website is this:
Since there are numerous videos, Apple’s website helps you keep track of videos you have seen, have not seen. Wow, nice touch! These check marks even persist after you close the browser (through cookie’s I’m assuming). Come back to the website a few days later and you’ll see your check marks still there! Good luck trying to remember which videos you’ve seen/not seen on Microsoft’s website.
I used to dread watching video tutorials based on bad past experiences. Apple’s Aperture tutorial website has completely changed my perception. Now, I rather enjoy watching Apple’s video clip tutorials: I don’t have to waste time finding the videos and I get to control how much time I want to spend. And if i decide to take a break and come back the next day, I won’t have to waste time watching the same videos because I forgot I had already watched them!
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Commentary, Software.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Learning on the web
Being an on-off amateur photographer, one of the first things I installed on my MacBook Pro was Aperture. Since I’m new to Aperture, I decided to check out the tutorials link.
Clicking the link opened up my browser and navigated me to the Aperture Tutorial website with numerous videos about 1 to 3 minutes long. After watching a couple of videos, I realized how easy it is to learn from this website.
Now I’ve seen many webcast/video tutorials before, especially Microsoft ones. What makes the Apple one different, and better than the Microsoft ones?
The tutorial website is really well designed. True to Apple’s design, there is no clutter on the website and it is clear where you go and how to select videos to watch. Compare this with Microsoft’s Office website:
Seriously, how long will it take you to find the tutorials link on that page? There’s even advertisements on the Office homepage!
Another important factor to easy web learning is short and to the point videos. There is no marketing fluff in Apple’s tutorial videos. When you click on a video, you know exactly what you are watching. Each video shows you what the feature is and how to perform it and quickly ends.
Once again, let’s compare to Microsoft’s Office website. After 20-30 seconds of hunting, I finally find the Training link. From there I click on the “Popular” link showing a video on “SharePoint document libraries”. Now being on a Mac, I don’t have Windows Media Player to play the video, but just looking at that page with the “20-30 minutes” timer makes me want to close the browser. This is actually pretty good for a Microsoft video as normally Microsoft videos that I’ve watched in the past are over an hour long minimum!
Why are long videos useless? First of all, everyone is busy so no one has the time nor the patience to sit through an hour-long lecture. Second, long videos are long typically because it’s jam packed with lots of information. Thus it’s really easy to get overwhelmed and forget most of what was discussed in the video.
Another nice feature of Apple’s tutorial website is this:
Since there are numerous videos, Apple’s website helps you keep track of videos you have seen, have not seen. Wow, nice touch! These check marks even persist after you close the browser (through cookie’s I’m assuming). Come back to the website a few days later and you’ll see your check marks still there! Good luck trying to remember which videos you’ve seen/not seen on Microsoft’s website.
I used to dread watching video tutorials based on bad past experiences. Apple’s Aperture tutorial website has completely changed my perception. Now, I rather enjoy watching Apple’s video clip tutorials: I don’t have to waste time finding the videos and I get to control how much time I want to spend. And if i decide to take a break and come back the next day, I won’t have to waste time watching the same videos because I forgot I had already watched them!
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Commentary, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.