What are the best ways to create engaging design thinking videos?

1 Know your audience

Before you start filming, you need to have a clear idea of who your target audience is and what they want to learn from your video. Are you creating a video for a potential client, a portfolio, a course, or a social media platform? Depending on your purpose and context, you may need to adjust your tone, style, length, and content of your video. For example, a video for a client may focus more on the value proposition and impact of your solution, while a video for a portfolio may highlight your creativity and technical skills.

2 Plan your story

A good design thinking video should tell a compelling story that takes the viewer through your journey of discovering, defining, developing, and delivering your solution. To plan your story, you can use a storyboard or a script to outline the main scenes, shots, and messages of your video. A common structure for a design thinking video is to start with an introduction that briefly and catchily introduces yourself, the problem, and the solution. Then you should show how you researched and understood the needs, pains, and goals of your users. After that, explain how you framed and scoped the problem based on your insights. Demonstrate how you generated and selected various ideas for your solution. Showcase how you built and refined your prototype using various tools and methods. Reveal how you tested your prototype with real users and collected feedback. Finally, summarize your main findings, learnings, and outcomes.

3 Use visuals and audio

One of the advantages of using video as a medium is that you can use visuals and audio to enhance your story and engage your audience. Visuals can include sketches, diagrams, photos, animations, screenshots, or footage of your prototype and users. Audio can include narration, interviews, sound effects, or music. When using visuals and audio, make sure they are relevant, clear, and consistent with your message and brand. Avoid using too many or too complex visuals and audio that may distract or confuse your audience.

4 Edit and refine

Once you have filmed your video, you need to edit and refine it to make it smooth and polished. To do this, you can use various software tools such as Adobe Premiere Pro, iMovie, or InVideo. Editing techniques include cutting out unnecessary or redundant scenes or shots, trimming the length and timing of each scene or shot, adding effects or animations between scenes or shots to create a smooth flow, adding titles, subtitles, captions, or labels to emphasize or explain key points, adjusting the brightness, contrast, saturation, or hue of your video to create a consistent and appealing look, and adjusting the volume, quality, balance, or pitch of your audio to make it clear and audible.

5 Test and share

Before you publish or share your video, you should test it with a small group of people who represent your target audience. Ask them for feedback on the content, structure, style, and quality of your video. You can use tools like UsabilityHub, UserTesting, or UserZoom to collect and analyze feedback. Based on the feedback, you may need to make some changes or improvements to your video. Finally, you can share your video on the platform or channel that suits your purpose and audience. You can also use tools like VidIQ, TubeBuddy, or Wistia to optimize and track your video performance.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?