Five Ways to Add Interactivity to Video

Interactive videos are more engaging—and more likely tostick with learners—than videos that they watch passively. It’s easy to addinteractivity into videos quickly and inexpensively. In fact, your favoriteauthoring tool might already support some of these features:

·        Attention and knowledge checks—Perhapsthe most basic use of interactive video is an attention check. Pausing to askviewers to do something before the video continues can offer a measureof assurance that the learner is paying attention.

The next level of interactivitychecks retention or comprehension of material. In this case, just acknowledgingthat they are still watching is not enough; learners have to answer one or morequestions on the material before continuing to view the video. This can be ashort quiz or a single question; the learner might be asked to answer amultiple-choice question, fill in blanks, or type in a short response. Someauthoring tools will collect the responses and record them as xAPI statementsthat managers can use to check learners’ progress. Asking questions andcollecting data on learners’ responses also helps instructors improve the videocontent.

“You can improve the end-userexperience by offering the quiz within the video or establishing progresschecks in which the user needs to pay attention to the video in order toadvance to the next lesson,” said Travis O’Connor, HapYak Interactive Video’s senior directorof revenue.

·        Divide the video into chapters—Breaking avideo into chapters or sections, with the possibility of jumping to relevantsections or going back to review sections, can greatly improve the learnerexperience. “One way to increase engagement on a video is via chapters,”O’Connor said in an email interview. “With chapters, the benefit is twofold. Forthe user, they have a clear understanding of what the video is about; and itallows people to learn at their own pace, which improves engagement.”

·        Create branching scenarios—An interactivevideo can feature branching scenarios or layered content sections. As a storyunfolds on the video, draw learners in by pausing to pose a question. It can beas simple as “What would you do?” This mechanism is also useful for allowinglearners to choose the content that is most relevant to them. Menu options canrange from “Review basic terms and concepts” to “Watch a demonstration of theprocedure.” Buttons or hotspots can link learners to the section of the videothat covers their selected response. Allowing learners to back up and trymultiple options or view multiple content sections is helpful and can ensuremore thorough learning.

·        Add interactive graphics or annotations—Addlayers of information to images or graphics with annotations. These can belinks or hotspots that add an overlay with more information—textual orgraphical—or take learners to additional required or supplementary information.The interactive hotspots can also pop up questions that prompt learners tosupply information. Ask learners to label a diagram of a tool they’ve beenlearning about, for example, or to fill in details of a map or chart on topicscovered earlier in the video.

·        Provide readings, forms, and resources—Shortvideos are great for providing an overview or review, but some learners willneed more detail. Interactive video comes to the rescue again: Link resources,including downloadable documents, to the video. Learners can pause, view thelinks or download the documents, then continue watching.

<h2>Engagement—and measurement

One key reason that eLearning designers and developers seek toadd interactive elements to eLearning, including video, is to improve learners’focus and engagement. But it’s beneficial to instructors and managers as well,through better measurement of learner participation and performance. “For theinstructor, having metrics around what parts of your video are successful andwhat people are ‘actively ignoring’ allows you to better tailor content in thefuture,” O’Connor said. “When armed with behavior analytics around howyour video is performing, both the instructor and the student benefit.”

Some authoring tools support adding interactivity to videoor adding overlays. Tools that are specifically designed to add interactivityare an option for those who already have videos or create their own videos.

HapYak takes a “BYOV—Bring Your Own Video” approach,according to O’Connor. “Our technology sits on top of the video, allowing youto use your YouTube, Vimeo, Brightcove, Kaltura, etc. videos, add interactiveelements onto the video experience, and then seamlessly publish them to the LMSor website,” he said. Additional integration allows instructors to createinteractive videos and have student responses and other data “pushed into thegradebook.”

In addition to LTI (learning tools interoperability)integration and support for xAPI statements, “we can push the data in variousformats such as a comma-separated file or JSON object,” O’Connor said. “So,depending on how the data needs to be transmitted, there are several ways tocapture those analytics.”

<H2>Editor’s note

Be sure to follow Anthony Altieri’s articles on writing xAPIstatements. To date, Altieri has written:

·        “GettingStarted with xAPI: Four Lines of Code” (May 17, 2017)

·        “TrackVideo Interactions with xAPI Statements” (July 4, 2017)