Dylan Harmon
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Can Your Video Production Improve Your User Experience Design?
One of the best things about adding video to a website is that it improves the user experience. When done right, video clears things out, establishes trust faster than text alone, and gives visitors the confidence to move forward. If you do it wrong, it slows down pages, interrupts reading, and makes things more difficult, which quietly kills conversions. It’s not a matter of “whether you use video.” The distinction is whether the video you make is part of the user experience.
We think of online video as product design at Two Stories Media. The goal is not to show off an edit. The aim is to assist someone finish a job, understand an offer, and feel good about picking you.
Why video UX design is important for current websites
A good website experience answers three questions quickly. What is this? Is it mine? What should I do now? Video can address those questions faster than other page elements, especially when the service is complicated, requires a lot of trust, or is hard to express.
There are a few ways that video can make UX better. It can make things easier to understand by showing instead of telling. It can make things clear with examples, walkthroughs, or real-life situations. It can boost confidence by portraying actual people, places, and evidence. It can also help people pay attention by combining a coherent story with visual hierarchy.
But there is a cost. Video makes a page heavier, and weight changes how fast it seems to load. If the page feels slow, visitors bounce before your message lands. That’s why video UX design needs to think about both storytelling and performance. Google uses metrics like Largest Contentful Paint and Interaction to Next Paint to show how well a site performs and how quickly it responds to user actions. There are set levels for what counts as a “good” experience.
Where video makes the user experience better the most
Putting video at a decision point usually gives the most boost to the user experience.
A short description of your brand or service on your homepage or service page will enable someone who has never been to your site before understand what you do without having to read a lot of information. A demo video on a product or offer page can help people feel more sure about what they are buying and cut down on “pre-sales questions” by showing them exactly how it works. Video on an ad landing page can help the page message match the ad promise, which makes things less confusing and more people fill out the form. Culture videos on a careers page can assist candidates figure out if they’re a good fit, which saves time for everyone.
Video also supports navigation when used as a guide. A short “what to expect” film can make a long procedure seem easier, even if the steps don’t change. This is a victory for UX.
How video harms user experience and what we do to stop it
It’s easy to guess what the most common UX blunders are.
Autoplay is a common problem. People go to websites for a lot of different reasons, such at work or in public. Sound that comes out of nowhere causes quick friction. Research-based UX guidelines says that video is only useful when consumers can manage it, know what it is, and have other methods to get to the content.
The second problem is performance. If a hero video makes the layout change or delays important material, it might make the whole site feel unsteady. Even if the video is lovely, the experience seems bad if the page skips while loading or the primary content comes late. This is where video production and web implementation need to operate together, not in separate areas.
The third problem is accessibility. If a video has important information, it should be available to people who can’t hear the audio or who would rather read it. WAI guideline talks about captions as writing that goes along with auditory information. It also talks about transcripts, including descriptive transcripts that are needed to understand visual information.
We see them as things we can’t change when we plan online videos. User control is the most important thing, performance is the second most important thing, and accessibility is incorporated in from the start.
How “good” video UX design looks in real life
Intent is the first step in good video UX design. The video should help people ask for a quote if that’s the main goal of the page. That means the film should rapidly show how it relates to the viewer, what happens next, and what they should do next.
This also means that the video should be easy to skim. Not everyone sees. Some people who come to the site read the headlines, skim the sections, and hunt for proof. When the page works for both categories of users, your UX gets better. We often put a short summary of the important points next to a video so that the user can choose the format they like best without missing any information.
Length is also important. A brief paragraph is usually preferable for UX on most service pages than a complete tale edit. A short summary video with the opportunity to watch the complete story on a separate page is frequently the best UX pattern for larger case studies.
Placement is important, too. It can be harder to understand if the video competes with the headline or moves the main message below the fold. Even if a visitor never hits play, they should still be able to grasp the page in seconds.
Accessibility and trust are part of the experience.
Accessibility isn’t only a matter of following the rules. It has to do with trust.
People can watch in quiet places with the help of captions. People can skim and search with transcripts. Both can help people understand better, feel less frustrated, and make the experience more welcoming. WAI’s advice on captions and transcripts is a great place to start when making media accessible on the web.
From a brand’s point of view, accessibility shows that you are professional. It shows that you care about being clear and that you value their time and situation.
How Two Stories Media makes videos for websites
When we make videos for websites, we first figure out what the page’s aim is and what queries the user has. Then we design the video’s job inside the page, not separate from it.
A brief homepage marketing film with a clear header is sometimes the best answer. A product tour can sometimes cut down on support requests. Sometimes it’s a piece that helps the right candidates sign up. The plan is always the same. The video helps UX, and UX helps conversion.
If you want to update your website or think your present videos are hurting performance, check out our video production services, look at our portfolio, and get in touch with us through our contact page. We’ll help you plan video UX design that loads quickly, is always available, and makes it easy for visitors to make a decision.