Designing for outside narration?

Hi Beth,

Pacing and spacing (pauses) is something folks get a feel for. In some ways, pacing will depend on the complexity of the concepts presented. Spacing provides breathing room for processing. Another factor is your audience. Too much spacing / too slow pace can be perceived as patronizing.

I tend to treat my audio in one of a few ways, depending on which message channel is dominant (audio, visual, interaction) in the design challenge. This isn't about learning styles. It's about balancing economics. We could put a lot of energy into visuals and audio simultaneously, or we could look at the challenges surrounding *getting* the concept and create a focal point. 

1. Written as if it could stand on its own. In this case, pacing and spacing is entirely about the message in isolation. I don't worry about how to synchronize with the visual presentation in this case when I'm writing the messaging. Using paragraphs to focus the message and using plain writing tenets usually produces better results than attempting to synchronize up with the visuals. Chasing the visuals with audio when audio is the most effective channel results in a choppy output that can turn off the participant.
2. Written to support the visuals or the activity. When the visual or interaction is the focal point, supporting this with audio can help to clarify and convey the message. This is where spacing / pauses can help provide focus and time to process the visual. This can also focus the audio message in expanding on what's in the visual (changing the focal point consistently can be helpful in directing attention). I've used a variety of methods to break down messaging. One method that can be helpful is a Left-to-Right breakdown that progressively maps a concept to the script / messaging. I'll usually transition this into a two column storyboard format that coordinates visual and audio messaging channels. There's an example of this here.

Your strategy will vary based on your needs. Hope this is helpful.

I meant to add another suggestion. Hearing your script and getting some feedback for the patterns applied to create focal channels, space and pace really helps to set rhythms. One way to do this is by getting a quick listen through a text to speech program. There are quite a few available. This one is free:

http://tts-api.com

Most pro narrators do a good job keeping full breaks between sentences. That helps when you need to insert a short pause between sentences to accommodate animations or visuals. 

The more experience your narrator has with online training the more likely they'll have a feeling for the expected pacing.

If you can listen in on the recording then you'll have the option to provide feedback during the session. Ten years ago we sat in on all the recordings. I don't know if that's as common today.

This too:) 

If there are spaces you want control over, consider breaking those out in the script. Most pro narrators will cut these up into separate files for you, offering flexibility in how you present each passage.

1-01 The first passage.

1-01a The second part that will appear after time or an event.

1-01b The third part that will appear after time or an event.

Haven't seen or heard of that one. It's definitely worth bookmarking considering the number of TTS requests we get.

Yep. Kind of like this one. It's simple. You could even use this for dynamic audio injections to produce simulated conversations using a JavaScript trigger.

I'm doing a careful reading of the responses so far and getting a lot out of them. Thank you, Steve and David!

Steve, re: your first post, I'm planning to go with Strategy #2 - let the narrative support the visuals. I created the first storyboard slides yesterday. I started with the graphics and bulleted text, then fleshed out the main points in the Notes/Script section. Your link to the storyboard templates was very helpful. Mine are already pretty close to that format (got the template from Jackie Van Nice's site). I just need to rearrange two sections to better distinguish the on-slide action from the narration. And it should be easy to indicate pauses and sections in the Script itself (Introductory text, bulleted text, closing text etc).

Again, thank you. This is helping a lot!