The Reflection Point: How to Bring Viewers’ Attention Back to Your Video
Ido Achrak
Our attention span is becoming shorter and shorter. While video can carry an immense amount of information, it does no good if the viewers do not actually watch the video itself. Now, there are different tricks to make a video easier to comprehend. You can create smaller videos to begin with. Or you can cut a long video into chapters. But what do you do if you just want to bring viewers’ attention back when it wanders?
Recently, I presented a 30 second video to a group of 20 people. After the first 5 seconds, I looked up to see that three of the viewers on their phone, several more were talking to each other, and one writing something on a notebook. Basically, everyone missed the point of the video.
I needed a new tactic. The next time—same video, different group—I decided to comment before hitting play. I just said, “This is a very short video. Make sure to keep your eyes on the characters faces so you can get the punchline.” It worked!
It’s a technique I use a lot now. When personally presenting a longer video to viewers, I can stop at a specific moment and say “pay attention to the next 5 sections of the video” or “did anyone noticed what just happened?”
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do that even when you are not physically there?
Introducing the Reflection Point
I’m happy to say that recently, Kaltura has added this ability with a feature called “Reflection Point.” It’s basically a pause in the video, where you can add your own words (“pay attention for what is next” or “did you see that?”) at the right time.
Reflection Points are part of the Interactive Video Quiz feature. (You can also choose to add multiple choice or true/false questions.) We originally considered naming this simple solution ‘Rhetorical Questions.’ No answer is expected to be given and so, unlike other options for interactive video quiz questions, it is not graded. But while Reflection Points can be used to ask rhetorical questions designed to provoke thought (“What could have caused that reaction?” or “What do you think will happen as a result?”), they can be used for more than just questions. That’s why we decided to call them Reflection Points instead. It’s an opportunity to make viewers stop, think about what they’ve just seen, and re-focus on what they’re doing.
Another great use case for a Reflection Point is to provide additional textual information. Yes, you can show text in a slide. However, the video pause allows you to help the viewers stop at the right time. With the use of the new hyperlink tool (CTRL-K or CMD-K), you can even direct them to a specific website showing them more information than a slide can provide.
Whether classroom materials, or corporate training like security or sexual harassment training, we all have videos we need to watch. They’re not always fun, even if they are important. And we all know that you can just click play, zone out, and let the video play to the end without necessarily engaging with the material. The Reflection Point is a great tool to make sure that viewers will have to reengage with the player.
However you use it, the new Reflection Point in Kaltura’s Interactive Video Quizzing is a great addition to a video creator’s arsenal.
Read here on different types of corporate training.
