Our Guiding Principles to Create the Best Whiteboard Animation Videos
At TruScribe, we’re proud to say that we’ve got the best of both worlds, in personnel and in principle to consistently create the best whiteboard animation videos. Our team is made up of hardworking, experienced professionals. Our production is steered by guidelines that promote effective whiteboard video content time and time again.
These guidelines are based on psychology and neuroscience. They use an understanding of brain function and learning tendencies to direct design choices. When our founder, Eric Oakland, met psychologist and writer Dr. Susan Weinschenk and made the video “ROI of User Experience,” it wasn’t just the first video completed under the TruScribe banner. It was the beginning of Scribology, which took off with lessons from Dr. Weinschenk’s book, “100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People.”
We call these principles Scribology, a philosophy that is instrumental in the methods and style we incorporate into our videos. Our highest-level concern in following them is to make whiteboard videos that are beneficial to our client. They’re also extremely useful in guiding recommendations we make to our clients about the best way to create videos.
Scribology helps us inform our clients about our practices and the options they have when working with us. It helps to codify and make objective some of the more subjective components of the creative process.
So what are these principles of Scribology?
Well, there are about twelve—and yes, I said “about”. That’s because not every TruScribe project involves every principle, and some involve additional or different ones. Here is a brief overview of our most important principles.
The Big 4
First, we prize Message above all.
Everything we do on your video is in service of your message. Whiteboard video can make your message more engaging and more retainable for your viewers than other types of content. This is why Scribology’s influence can show in different ways for different clients. Messages have different needs, and we’ll always defer to the best way to serve your message.
Then, there’s Story—your brain’s favorite way of transmitting and absorbing information.
It’s a sort of human coding language that we use to keep viewers focused.
Motion focuses your eyes through the lizard brain’s response to movement. We involve movement to direct your viewers’ eyes to the information you need them to see.
From the artist’s hand to the drawings they create, our frames are filled with motion.
The Surprise you get from new images or unexpected drawings triggers the release of dopamine, which makes you curious and keeps you that way.
Supporting Players
We create the perfect Sync of your video’s audio and visual elements, securing your eye on the right part of the frame and ear on the right part of the message.
The principle of Hand-Drawn Images involves acknowledgment of the brain’s affinity for human forms, and uses the artist’s hand as a sort of moving character that pulls the eye with it as moves around the frame.
We use close Framing to make the client-branded marker large and clear, increase the intimacy of the viewer’s relationship with the artist’s hand, and allow for better viewing on mobile devices.
We work with you to get the perfect Voice for your video, either by using one that you supply or by providing you with samples of voice talent from our partner voice acting agency.
Finally, we use Color intentionally to pull the eye to the most important images and parts of the frame.
Scribology is more than just a list of best practices.
It involves a deeper understanding of how we create the best whiteboard animation videos. Remember, these principles weren’t chosen at random—they were derived from neuroscience and psychological research.
What specific results can clients expect to see in a TruScribe whiteboard video?
Our focus on Sync brings quantifiable boosts in information retention. When audio and visual are combined in a video, information retention after 72 hours is 65%. That’s considerably better than audio alone (10%) or visual alone (35%).
Scribology’s principles of Hand-Drawn Images and Framing keep audience engagement high and focused.
We’ve learned that, when forced to choose, the brain will choose visual over audio content. This means that not only can visuals distract on their own, but that these distractions will take precedence over your video’s narration. Your message will be quickly tuned out as your viewers attempt to decode the visuals, and unconsciously tune out the narrator.
Let’s look at one more in-video application of a principle—Color.
The principle of Color also increases and directs engagement. If there’s only one accent color (let’s say red, for example), then viewers’ attention is pulled to anything drawn red. Like the moving hand, it’s another way to guide the eye to the most salient parts of the frame.
With a variety of accent colors, this focusing effect becomes harder to achieve. The eye is distracted by the colors, the mind works to figure out what each color signifies, and no one color can lay claim to being the “most important.”
One accent color maintains its ability to highlight key elements of your visuals and avoids distracting viewers from the message the way that a rainbow of colors might.
Scribology is a set of guidelines that helps our creative team apply best practices in whiteboard animation content creation. It helps us make tough calls, informs our discussions with clients, makes the subjective more quantifiable, and most importantly, keeps our standard of quality high.
We don’t just come at whiteboard video content creation with good intentions. We’re seasoned professionals who approach our work with grounded, effective methods of promoting your message.
TruScribe knows whiteboard, from the “how” through the “why”.
Whiteboard video can be a game-changing intervention in your company’s communications and messaging. That’s because we back up our work with the principles of Scribology.
“Video may be the best way to improve learning styles,” writes Michael Tsur. A TruScribe video is the best way to improve your messaging style. In the hands of our team of experts, Scribology’s guidelines make every one of our whiteboard videos engaging and retainable.