A recorded voice over added to any training is always considered to be an advantage. But just recently I've realised that personally I can stand listening to the voice talents reading the narrative with their plain clean voices... I always turn it off after one slide.
Do you have any ways to make it better? Have any of you given some instructions to the voice talents about their performance and did it work?
Or maybe - a recorded narrative is not such an advantage anyway? Do you always use it? You it in a different way? I am interested in your opinions...
Good voice-over talent should be able to sound clear and conversational. You can certainly provide some direction for that. That used to be easier in the "old days" when one would/could participate in the recording session and give immediate feedback. But you should be able to work out some feedback method with the talent that will satisfy you both.
It's also vital to consider how the text is written. Even the best voice-over talent won't be able to make stilted text sound conservational.
Recorded narration may or may not be an advantage.
If the narration is describing actions that are happening on screen, then it's useful, because the learner gets visual input supported by audio input. That decreases their cognitive load.
Can you turn off the narration and still get all the content of the course? In other words, is the narrator basically reading the text on screen, or a close proximity of it? If so, then the narration is actually harming the learner's ability to understand, because listening to and reading text at the same time increases cognitive load.
Personally, it also drives me nuts when a course forces me to listen to a narrator read text when I could read the text a lot faster.
I've been moving away from audio narration in general. The more you design your course to be a sequence of practice opportunities for your learners, the less audio narration seems appropriate. If your course has a lot of audio narration, that could be a sign that you are doing too much "telling." Focus more on what learners should do with the information, and design your course to give them practice doing those things. Narration will naturally become less important as you focus less on "telling" and more on having learners perform relevant tasks.
To overcome this boredom factor, I now tend to use two narrators (male and female) for my projects. Yes, it costs more, but my clients are willing to pay for it as it is more engaging and interesting. You can see examples here.
In line with what Judy said, good talent can make even the scariest topic sound conversational and clearly understood. If we, as narrators, can't make the copy sound natural, not only are we doing a disservice to you, but to your learners as well. While it may sound silly - having a good grasp of diagramming (remember that chapter in high school English that we never thought we'd use?) helps things immensely as it allows you to properly structure your copy for the narrator.
Judy's right - there's a vast difference for 'writing for reading' vs. 'writing for speaking'. :)
With regards to participating in recording sessions, I always have that as an option for clients - especially if it's the first time working together. It makes sure everyone's on the same page with regards to delivery, intended audience, etc. Virtually every full-time vo that specializes in e-learning has this as an option for the very same reason.
Russ is also right in that it's good to have a male and female talent narrate - especially for longer courses. While I (or any talent) would love to have all the money for ourselves <<insert evil Scrooge McDuck laugh here>>, a more pragmatic approach is to divvy up the narration with someone of the opposite gender. Not only does it protect against listener ear strain, it shows that we can play nice with others.
It's important that your talent either understand the content or be able to successfully pretend that they understand it. This is especially important for highly technical content - if you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to sound convincing. And the first mispronunciation will lose your learners.
If I have the time, I make two recordings - one initial one to get the animations in the right place, and then a final one a day or two later, after the script has marinated in my brain for a while. You may not have the bandwidth or budget for this but at least give your talent adequate time to look over the material, ask questions, and do any research they need to do. It's amazing the quality improvement after one good night's sleep.
And it's silly, but the oft-repeated advice to smile when you record really works. I used to tell people to pretend that they are the foremost expert in the field and they're talking to their favorite person at work - you get both authoritative and friendly (but not too casual).
Audio quality is so important too, especially in these days of podcasts and overproduced audiovisual media on every corner. The only thing I use the Storyline audio editor for anymore is removing awkward pauses that only sounded awkward once I synced my visuals - I do the rest of my production in Audacity. If you're doing your own audio, make sure that you're doing the following:
1) Recording in a quiet environment with a decent mic 2) Removing noise 3) Editing track and removing ALL errors, restarts, throat clearing, etc. (You'd be surprised, really) 4) Compressing (and removing noise again) 5) Adding EQ to enhance voice / remove undesirable stuff
5 Replies
Good voice-over talent should be able to sound clear and conversational. You can certainly provide some direction for that. That used to be easier in the "old days" when one would/could participate in the recording session and give immediate feedback. But you should be able to work out some feedback method with the talent that will satisfy you both.
It's also vital to consider how the text is written. Even the best voice-over talent won't be able to make stilted text sound conservational.
Recorded narration may or may not be an advantage.
That's my two-cents' worth. :-)
I've been moving away from audio narration in general. The more you design your course to be a sequence of practice opportunities for your learners, the less audio narration seems appropriate. If your course has a lot of audio narration, that could be a sign that you are doing too much "telling." Focus more on what learners should do with the information, and design your course to give them practice doing those things. Narration will naturally become less important as you focus less on "telling" and more on having learners perform relevant tasks.
Cheers!
-Ray
To overcome this boredom factor, I now tend to use two narrators (male and female) for my projects. Yes, it costs more, but my clients are willing to pay for it as it is more engaging and interesting. You can see examples here.
Russ
In line with what Judy said, good talent can make even the scariest topic sound conversational and clearly understood. If we, as narrators, can't make the copy sound natural, not only are we doing a disservice to you, but to your learners as well. While it may sound silly - having a good grasp of diagramming (remember that chapter in high school English that we never thought we'd use?) helps things immensely as it allows you to properly structure your copy for the narrator.
Judy's right - there's a vast difference for 'writing for reading' vs. 'writing for speaking'. :)
With regards to participating in recording sessions, I always have that as an option for clients - especially if it's the first time working together. It makes sure everyone's on the same page with regards to delivery, intended audience, etc. Virtually every full-time vo that specializes in e-learning has this as an option for the very same reason.
Russ is also right in that it's good to have a male and female talent narrate - especially for longer courses. While I (or any talent) would love to have all the money for ourselves <<insert evil Scrooge McDuck laugh here>>, a more pragmatic approach is to divvy up the narration with someone of the opposite gender. Not only does it protect against listener ear strain, it shows that we can play nice with others.
-Mike
It's important that your talent either understand the content or be able to successfully pretend that they understand it. This is especially important for highly technical content - if you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to sound convincing. And the first mispronunciation will lose your learners.
If I have the time, I make two recordings - one initial one to get the animations in the right place, and then a final one a day or two later, after the script has marinated in my brain for a while. You may not have the bandwidth or budget for this but at least give your talent adequate time to look over the material, ask questions, and do any research they need to do. It's amazing the quality improvement after one good night's sleep.
And it's silly, but the oft-repeated advice to smile when you record really works. I used to tell people to pretend that they are the foremost expert in the field and they're talking to their favorite person at work - you get both authoritative and friendly (but not too casual).
Audio quality is so important too, especially in these days of podcasts and overproduced audiovisual media on every corner. The only thing I use the Storyline audio editor for anymore is removing awkward pauses that only sounded awkward once I synced my visuals - I do the rest of my production in Audacity. If you're doing your own audio, make sure that you're doing the following:
1) Recording in a quiet environment with a decent mic
2) Removing noise
3) Editing track and removing ALL errors, restarts, throat clearing, etc. (You'd be surprised, really)
4) Compressing (and removing noise again)
5) Adding EQ to enhance voice / remove undesirable stuff
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