today i'm talking about makers, a digital and video storytelling platform that hopes to be the largest ever catalog of stories about women. launched in 2012, they feature original interviews with amazing women from different fields. i wanted to share because i think this project is beautifully done and critically important - for the ladies and the guys - but also because makers is a great lesson in how to do video right. read on for more on why makers is doing video design well and how they can be doing user experience design better.
looking good: the videos are short and they feed into each other, which is great for keeping attention. the site is very searchable - an area where so many (actually, most!) content focused sites fail. it is focused and well organized.
but here's the thing: every video - which is typically between one and five minutes - is branded with makers at the beginning and the end. this is great from a branding perspective but not from a functionality perspective. the problem is that because the videos are so short (and every featured person has a few videos) you usually end up watching a couple of videos. but after 4 videos, the makers intro and outro gets pretty annoying, and add onto that a 30 second ad every other video and you've got a recipe for pushing people away.
so, long story short...
dear makers people: i love the initiative and the site, i think it is intelligently designed and packed full of inspiration, wisdom and brilliant women. but you should replace the intro and outro situation with simple overlay branding and have your developer friends find a way for the videos to more seamlessly flow in and out of each other. that way we can ensure that as many people as possible watch as many of these videos as possible.
dear readers/bosses: spend some time on this site. look at how they treat video design-wise and in terms of functionally. also, you should probably watch *allofthevideos* - you’ll leave inspired and engaged.