The Prevalence and Utility of Formal Features in Screen-Capture Tutorial Videos

摘要

Purpose: Screen-capture video is an increasingly popular vehicle for communicating information online. We posit that screen-capture video represents a distinct genre of technical communication, which leverages a specific set of formal features to communicate information to viewers.We propose and evaluate an initial catalog of formal features, grouping them in four categories: attention cues, segmentation cues, content features, and vocal performance. Method: To evaluate our catalog, we completed a systematic survey of the features of 200 screen-capturetutorial videos from YouTube. Results: We found that many of the features in our catalog are already being leveraged by screen-capture creators and, further, that use of these features is correlated with video viewership. Conclusion: We provide a practicalcatalog of formal features that screen-capture creators use to effectively convey information to viewers, and demonstrate that these features are predictive of video viewership. Further, our results suggest that certain features, like vocal performance and segmentation cues, are especiallypredictive of viewership.