This video follows the story of Neil, who learns why he can’t enlarge and print a photo that was taken with his phone. Using an analogy of a blanket, the video illustrates what happens when a small image is enlarged and what’s needed for printing larger photos. It teaches:
The basics of pixels in digital images
Why a digital image with a small number of pixels can’t be enlarged
What happens when a digital image is enlarged too much
This video is part of the Common Craft video library and is designed for teaching technology concepts. Common Craft members can download and/or embed it on public or private websites.
Matthew Monteith is a New York-based artist who had an idea for a photo series that captures people explaining artworks to others. Part of his motivation, according to this article on Flavorwire, was a fascination with explanation itself. What follows is my new favorite quote on the subject, by Monteith:
I am fascinated with the art of explanation, the moment when one individual, using their own knowledge of an object, both conceptual and historical takes on the task of animating that story and attempts to plant the seed of that idea into the minds of others. These ideas morph into new ideas and ultimately into new works.
I love it. The explainer's goal is to plant the seed of an idea into the minds of others. A few of Montheith's photos art explanation photos are below. You can find many more here.
I’m sure you know a friend or relative who has strongly-held opinions about a subject and is convinced that their position is right. But when asked about specifics, it becomes clear that they lack a basic understanding of the working parts that back-up that position.
A recent article by Tania Lombrozo, PhD., a cognitive scientist at UC Berkeley, highlights what causes these extreme positions and what can be done to moderate them. Lombrozo’s article is based on a recent paper by psychologist Phil Fernbach of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado. Fernbach found that:
[…] people overestimate how well they understand the mechanics of complex policies, and this sense of understanding helps bolster politically extreme positions.
The striking implication, for which the researchers find support, is that getting people to appreciate their own ignorance can be enough to rein in strong opinions.
The question becomes: How? How does Aunt Sally come to appreciate that she doesn’t understand as much as she thinks she does? This is not the best dinner conversation.
Fernbach found that one successful option is to ask her to explain the issue:
Here's how the study worked. People completed an online survey in which they first rated their agreement with several policies, such as sanctions on Iran and a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. They were then asked to estimate how well they felt they understood each policy and received an unexpected request: for two of the policies, they were told to "describe all the details" they knew about the impact of instituting that policy, "going from the first step to the last, and providing the causal connection between the steps."
In other words, people were asked to explain the nitty gritty mechanics of how the policy would play out, an exercise that led many to subsequently lower their estimates of how well they actually understood the policy.
Thus humbled, people's agreement or disagreement with the policy also became more moderate. More surprisingly, explaining also affected behavior: a follow-up study found that after explaining how various policies would work, people were less likely to donate money to an organization that supported the position they had originally endorsed.
This sounds familiar. When writing scripts for Common Craft videos, I’ve often had my perspective of a subject change in the midst of explaining it. The process of trying to make a subject understandable for others helps me see it from a new perspective. This is one of the more powerful aspects of explanation that is often forgotten. Through explaining, we learn. Lombrozo continues:
Why was explanation so effective? In a New York Times piece discussing this work, co-author Steven Sloman and Phil Fernbach suggest that explanation acts as "a kind of revelatory trigger mechanism" that forces people to confront their lack of understanding. When you think you understand, probe further. Ask yourself "how?" and "why?" Ask others the same.
That’s great advice. When I speak about the Art of Explanation, I encourage the audience to look for explanation problems and then write explanations that would solve them. I ask them to pretend they are writing a script for a video because by simply writing about it, they will start to see it from a new more informed perspective.
Paul Graham, who runs the venture capital firm Y-Combinator, said something similar about the writing process back in 2005:
I think it's far more important to write well than most people realize. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. If you're bad at writing and don't like to do it, you'll miss out on most of the ideas writing would have generated.
The next time you need to explain a complex idea, or even want to understand it better, start writing. It’s an exercise that opens up the new perspectives.
NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.
Dropbox, with 100+ million users, has become a case study in startup success. But before that success they had a big problem to overcome, one that seems to plague startups everywhere. How they solved it and what that has meant to their company provides a look at the future of business communication and how to engage and turn website visitors into customers.
A New Kind of Problem
Companies are problem-solving machines. Whole teams and departments exist to solve engineering problems, design problems, marketing problems, and management problems.
Dropbox was no different. They saw a problem causing pain for computer users everywhere and solved it with a remarkably simple solution. By downloading a small program, Dropbox users could suddenly access their documents across computers and devices.
Dropbox solved the design and engineering problems in an elegant fashion. They secured funding and saw an opportunity for mainstream success. Yet one big problem lingered. Dropbox was very difficult to explain. It was a new idea that lived in a world without analogy. The company needed a way to make people care about Dropbox before clicking the “Download Dropbox” button.
This is where Dropbox found a solution. In 2009, Dropbox approach Common Craft about creating an explainer video. A few months later, the home page of Dropbox.com was redesigned to display a short animated video to introduce and explain the product. Watching the video was one of the only actions a visitor could take on the front page other than sign up. It was a central part of their website strategy. At the time, Dropbox had more than two million users.
Here's the video:
Did It Work?
Over three years and 100+ million users later, the video had an impact. Of course, I can't claim that the video was the reason Dropbox grew so incredibly. But the video's presence during this growth speaks for itself. Dropbox is not the kind of company that takes their home page lightly.
NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.
As the company has evolved, the video is no longer available on Dropbox.com. However, I was recently able to get data on it's performance. Dropbox told me that over the last year, it averaged about 30,000 views per day, or about 900,000 views per month. During the three years the video has been available, it’s racked up over 30 million views, making it one of the most viewed product videos on the Web.
By using a video on its front page, Dropbox was able to solve their explanation problem and give visitors a way to imagine how it could fit into their lives.
Why Did It Work?
The video worked because it was designed to be an explanation. Its content is not about features, marketing buzz or technical superiority. Rather, it answers a simple question that every company should consider: “Why should I care about this product?” By answering this question simply and clearly, they were able to motivate website visitors to sign up.
Format and Duration
The video also has a number of traits that have proven to be effective in similar situations. For example, it’s brief, about 2 minutes long. It tells a charming story of a person who experiences a problem and finds that Dropbox solves it. The video is also presented in a disarming style that uses paper cut-outs and stop motion animation - a format known as Common Craft Style. These factors matter and the Dropbox founders made them a priority.
Location, Location, Location
But there’s more to this picture. Unlike many startups that see viral videos and YouTube views as the key to success, Dropbox thought differently. They saw an opportunity to connect the video with the one thing that mattered most -- the “Download Dropbox” button. By hosting the video themselves and making dropbox.com the home of the video, they could build a front page strategy around it that focused less on views and viral shares, and more on conversions. This is not possible on YouTube.
Dropbox is just one example of companies that are seeing the potential to think differently about how they communicate. Amidst all the technical and design problems to solve, it’s easy to overlook the potential to focus on explanation as a strategy. But the potential is real. People are less likely to adopt what they don’t understand, and remarkably good explanations are the key to solving that problem and inviting website visitors to take the next step.
Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft, author of The Art of Explanationand is credited for inspiring the explainer video industry.
Based on suggestions and votes from Common Craft members, we just published a new video called Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) - Explained by Common Craft.
What it Teaches: This video explains the business use of Virtual Private Networks. It tells the story of Candice who discovers her new employer’s VPN, which means she can securely connect to the company network over the Internet.
•Why normal Internet connections are not secure for business information
•Why VPNs make sense for businesses
•How VPNs connect employees and remote offices to headquarters
•How encryption works to make information secure on the Internet
This video is part of a series on Internet basics and is meant for use in technology education. Corporate trainers, teachers and librarians will find it useful for quickly introducing VPNs.
We hear a lot about design these days. Apple products are probably the most popular examples. The idea is that Apple became one of the most valuable companies in the world, in part, because they focus on the design of their products.
But what does that mean, really? What do organizations who focus on design do differently?
Recently the TV show 60 Minutes featured the design company IDEO, which was founded by David Kelley. At multiple points in the interview, Kelley mentions an idea that is at the core of design and design thinking. The word is empathy.
The central tenet of design thinking, according to Kelley, isn't one of aesthetic or utility, but of empathy and human observation. "Be empathetic," Kelley explained to CBS' Charlie Rose. "Try to understand what people really value." Doing that, he says, will lay the foundation for more intuitive designs.
This got me thinking. When I talk about the most fundamental ideas that make explanations work, I use very similar language. To make something easy to understand, you must empathize. Put yourself in the audience’s shoes and try to understand how your communication sounds to them. Only by empathizing can you create an explanation that works.
Could it be that explanation and design have a lot more in common? I think so, and here’s one way to look at it.
We are all designers. If you’ve ever made a paper airplane, taken a photo or built a fire, you’ve designed something. You had a goal and you made decisions about how to accomplish that goal using a specific medium. We are all designers.
Likewise, we are all explainers. Every day we communicate ideas with the goal to help people understand. We explain why traffic was bad, why the CEO made a decision, why people sneeze more at springtime. We are all explainers.
Now, being a designer or explainer does not necessarily mean we are good at it. The rubber hits the road, in both cases, when we learn about quality and what goes into a good design or explanation. The goal is not simply to have done it, but to have done it well. And that’s where we find the big difference between the two.
Design thinking has developed over many years. It is a profession and a focus of attention and care. People study it, practice it and refine it over a lifetime. Some individuals have a talent for it and apply it to products we use every day. As a culture, we’re learning to appreciate good design and the designers who make it happen.
Unfortunately, this is not currently the case with explanation. While technical writers, teachers and journalists are often amazing explainers, we don't often think about these professions through the lens of explanation. We know they are great teachers, for example, but we don't necessarily point out explanation as a skill that makes them especially great. To me, this is like saying that an iPod is a useful gadget without recognizing that design is the element that makes it so useful.
My point is this: Communicators have an opportunity to think about the role of explanation like we think about the role of design. It's a skill that can be defined, developed, practiced and put to work in solving problems. Over time, we may see that a focus on explanation develops into something akin to design, where explainers emerge and inspire others to think differently about making ideas easy to understand.
It's possible that one key to explanation is applying design thinking to communication. By learning to empathize with our audience and understanding their needs, we can design communications that solve specific problems. The more this is the focus, the more we'll see that great explanations can become a new goal for professionals - something we can use to create change.
The next time you’re communicating something complex - remember - you’re a designer, too.
Here's the 60 Minutes segment about David Kelley and IDEO:
NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.
