Scribology is Science + Art
Creating great content doesn’t only mean great art. When TruScribe started creating whiteboard animation videos in 2011 we knew we wanted to create more than just fun videos. We looked to science to figure out what would make our videos stick. We know that our clients need their videos to make an impact – to train employees, to educate about a new service, to explain a complicated process.
After consulting neuroscience and psychology research, content studies, and conferring with people much smarter than we are about the brain, we identified what worked and why. We call those principles “Scribology”. While our term is fun, the science and the WHY behind it is impactful and important.
When talking with clients about creating content, we refer to these as the 12 (or so) principles of Scribology, and how the most relevant principles are applied to each project we work on.
So what are the most important principles?
Message & Story
Message is the most important factor to us because it’s the most important factor to you. You are taking the time, energy, and resources to create a TruScribe video or infographic or to use TruScribe graphic recording services because you have an important message to share. Everything that we do reinforces your message and makes it clear and memorable.
Story is the other most important principle of Scribology because people learn best through stories. Stories help the brain process information, understand context and the relationship between ideas. Stories bring your message to life.
Attention
When you create content to share your message and story, you need to grab and keep your audience’s attention. TruScribe artists do this through our next two principles – Motion and Surprise.
Our lizard brains are wired to notice motion and can even take control and turn the head. Once they’re watching, we create so many opportunities to surprise the viewer in order to peak their curiosity, keep them guessing what’s coming next, and keep their attention longer.
Hand-drawn content is particularly well-suited to grabbing the viewers’ attention and creating opportunities to surprise the brain.
Retention
Most importantly you need them to remember your message so they can take action, change a behavior or way of thinking. Content creators, from marketers to HR & training professionals to event planners struggle with retention of their message because it’s expensive to teach visually.
Content is more memorable when delivered in more than one mode, bringing us to our next two Scribology principles: Voice and Visuals.
That powerful combination increases an audience’s retention rate from 10% after 72 hours (with just voice, text and sparse imagery) all the way up to 65% after 72 hours. That means 6.5x better retention when voice and visuals are in sync, which is more achievable when we recognize and intentionally deliver content in this way.
These core Scribology principles set the stage for content that can transform your audience.
This infographic is another way to look at it.
For more information about Scribology, download this brief whitepaper.
