Interactive web video is a great way of engaging online audiences and providing a unique viewing experience. Interactive videos have always seemed quite complicated to produce, which is why there aren’t many interactive videos on the web. Although, thanks to YouTube and advances in video sharing platforms interactive videos are now very simple to create.
With the help of YouTube’s Annotations feature we’re going to explore exactly how you can create interactive online video content.
Step 1 – Know Your Interactive System
Knowing what interactive tools, systems and features are available to you will directly impact the shots, storyboards and scripts you plan to use for your video. For example, YouTube Annotations don’t offer many interactive features, so you need to be well aware of what you can and can’t do in terms of interactivity before you begin shooting.
YouTube Annotations offers clickable links, which take users directly to another video location on the YouTube site. These Annotations can either be clickable text or transparent boxes. Your choice of Annotation will depend on whether you want to make objects in the video “clickable”, or whether you want users to click instructive text to continue their video journey.
It’s worth noting that within YouTube Annotations there is no limit to the amount of video links you put into each video, which allows for the user to take different viewing journeys each time.
Once you’re fully aware of the interactive systems at your disposal you can craft your video to fit those features.
Step 2 – Plan Your Interactivity
Before you begin filming or animating your video, carefully plan and storyboard what sections of your video are going to be interactive. Now that you know what interactive tools you can use it’s crucial to make sure your shots benefit those elements as much as possible.
You’ll also need to plan out the duration of each shot with the user experience in mind. Every time the user makes an interaction a new video will load, which will slightly disrupt the viewing experience each time. To ensure this doesn’t happen too frequently try to keep each video segment between the 1 and 2 minute mark.
Remember, the user will always be intrigued to find out how their interaction has affected the onscreen action, so it’s rare they will leave the video early, but your job will be to make sure you don’t cluster interactions too close together, in order to keep the interactive journey seamless and smooth.
Step 3 – Produce Your Video
Now that you’ve planned how you are going to use your interactive YouTube Annotations you can begin producing your video.
Try to maintain the best audio, lighting and overall picture quality possible throughout your production. You’ll find that a fraction of the quality in these areas will get lost during your editing, exporting and uploading processes.
It’s always good to bear in mind that no matter how interactive your video is, if any aspect of your final production isn’t up to scratch it will have a big impact on the user’s overall enjoyment of the video.
Don’t forget to cut and export your video into individual sections. Each scene that follows an interactive point will need to be a completely separate video in order for the YouTube Annotations system to work effectively.
Step 4 – Upload Your Videos To YouTube
Once you have successfully exported all your videos it’s time to upload them to YouTube. Set up an account by going to YouTube.com and when you have completed your registration click “Upload” at the top of the screen to begin uploading your videos.
Within the upload screen you’ll be able to upload all of your videos at once. Remember, when you’re uploading your videos make sure you mark your first video, or your opening video as “Public” and mark all other videos as “Unlisted”.
The reason for this is so that when users search for your video they won’t stumble across a random section of the production. Instead they will find the first, introductory section of your video where they can start their interactive video interactive journey.
Don’t worry that the rest of your videos are marked as “Unlisted”. This means that only users with the unique URL for each video can access that particular piece of content, which all users clicking on your opening video will have. This is because your Annotations will have the “Unlisted” links within each relevant video making the content viewable despite the listing not being ”Public”.
Step 5 – Set Up Your YouTube Annotations
YouTube have made Annotations really easy to set up over the years. When you log into YouTube, click on your Channel icon, located in the top right hand corner of the screen. You’ll then be given a list of options; from those options click “Video Manager”, which should be the second option down. You will then be able to see all of your uploaded videos.
Your videos will be displayed in a long list with the “Edit” button visible underneath each one. In the edit screen at the top of the page you will see the “Annotations” button displayed three places in from the left hand side of the screen.
Once you click Annotations you will see an “ + Add annotation” button on your right hand side, which reveals a drop-down menu when clicked. In that drop-down menu you’ll need to click on “Spotlight” to create a clickable video Annotation.
From here you can choose to have a transparent or text-filled interactive link and place it on any part of the screen, at any point in the video, for any length of time you wish. You should notice at the bottom of the Annotation area there is an unchecked box called “Link”. Click the unchecked box and it will reveal a space where you can copy and paste the URL for your next video/s. This is what gives users the interactivity to go to the next scene and see the effects of their onscreen actions.
Annotations are automatically saved, but if you wish to delete them you can do so using the “dustbin” button, which is on the left hand side of the screen. When you’re finished with your Annotations, simply click “Publish” and your interactive links will now be applied to that particular video.
Depending on how many videos you have, this process could take a while, but when you’re done you’ll have a fantastic piece of interactive video ready to market on the web.
Interactive Video Examples
Now that you know how to create an interactive online video on YouTube it’s worth checking out some of the great examples of interactive video already on YouTube, and how they use YouTube Annotations.
Example 1 – Saved By The Bell:
Example 2 – Sugar Streak:
Example 3 – Sesame Street:
