Why tutorials are amazing

Hey, Jess here!

Source: https://www.earleys.be/tutorials

Straight to the point; tutorials are amazing! I'm a huge fan of any kind of tutorial you can find out there on the internet. I don't care if it's a video, pictures, written or a combination. As long as it's done well and understandable, I love it.

But why do I love them so much? It's not really like I can't ever figure out how to do things myself or come up with creative ideas. (Though sometimes the first one is true.) But sometimes I'm just looking around on Pinterest, for example, and I come across a tutorial of something that's really awesome or even useful. And the best part is, I can immediately do it. If I have the materials that is.

Though tutorials aren't only for new things. As some may know, I have been drawing for a long time now. But I'm still looking up tutorials every now and then, just to improve skill I already have. Or I find new ways of doing something I've already been doing. And sometimes it is true; I can't figure out how to do something. Especially now that I have my drawing tablet, there are moments when I want to draw something, but I just don't know how. Then I find something on the internet that explains which brushes I need or in which order I have to do something ad I know how to do it.

But what makes a good tutorial in mu opinion? I already mentioned that there are a few different kinds of turorials out there and they can also be combined.

Video tutorials

First there are videos. These videos can be made in a whole bunch of ways, but not all of them work as good as others. Of course it also depends on the preference of the watcher or what the tutorial is about. But that doesn't mean there aren't things that work better than other things. To explain this, I'd like to use an example. A while ago, I was really into crocheting. This was mostly because I wanted to do amigurumi so I could make those adorable pokémon dolls. But I didn't even know the basics of crocheting, even though I had a book in which the basics were explained, The problem was that I couldn't make sense out of the pictures in the book. At some point I was so determined that I wanted to learn how to crochet, I started looking up videos, since pictures obviously didn't work for me. There were a few different kinds of videos I found when I looked for beginner tutorials. I found a few in which the person talked about what they did while showing their work in the video. But there were a few problems; they worked really fast so you couldn't really see what they did and they only mentioned the stitches without explaining how to do the stitches. This would've been fine for someone who's experienced, but not for a beginner and I mentioned I looked for beginner tutorials. After that I found two other kinds of videotutorials that did work quite well. Both of these kinds were a lot slower, so you can actually follow what they were doing. But in one of the videos, the person explained everything by talking. She mentioned the stitches, told and showed in a slow pace how to do them. In the other video no one talked, but kind of like subtitles, it was displayed in the video what you had to do. This also worked well, and it was because they movements in the video were easy to follow. So in my opinion; it's important to let your viewers be able to follow what you're doing.

Pictured tutorials

Source: http://lefay00.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-First-
Generation-Starters-373508185

Then there are tutorials with pictures. In these pictures you can see some of the stages of the proces to making what the turorial's about. In this case, I'm inclined to say that the longer, and thus more pictures, the better. When someone only uses pictures, there is a chance they skip steps. They most probably don't do this on purpose, but they know very well what to do (because they made the tutorial) and then unknowingly assume that others do too. Of course, a lot of time people are able to figure it out, but not always and that's why it is a problem. To overcome this problem, many people add text to the pictures. Sometimes it's just small notes to explain a little more what's happening in the pictures, but sometimes it's more like the pictures explain the text. In my opinion, both of these ways work really well. This way the viewer or reader can read what to do and also have a visual idea of what's happening or going to happen. I do think it's up to personal preference which one works better for you.

Written tutorials

And following up, is the written tutorial. This is actually just a text explaining what you need and then what to do, usually in a varying amount of steps. To me, these kind of tutorials can easily be unclear or difficult to follow, but that's because I'm more of a visual kind of person. But when they're written well, they can work great, even for me. But here there is also a chance that the writer skips steps. Just like with the pictures, they probably don't do it un purpose, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. It's also possible that the writer is afraid their tutorial will be too long and people won't be interested. But really, if that's the case, they will come back after they can't find anything as good as that tutorial. So to write it well, it should be detailed. Don't leave out anything of the proces! And maybe mentioned what the result of a step should look like.

As a conclusion, it's easy to say that every kind of tutorial could be great. And maybe you've already noticed that I think combining things might be the best way to do it. Just like I mentioned the video with the text on screen, or when they put text next to/beneath a picture. The point is, just do what you think would be the clearest. If you want to write a tutorial, but you're not sure if it's clear, add some pictures or a video (or a link to a video!) and vice versa. Thus the final conclusion would be: a clear tutorial is a good tutorial.

To be continued...