Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Preparing a script for voice over, I thought to myself “have I ever talked about voice over on the blog?” – a quick search indicated no.

What is Voice Over?

Voice Over (VO) is a script-read and audio recorded narration that is often built into a project during or post-production. In e-learning, it is often referred to as audio narration. My stance on VO is almost exclusively “I hate it.”, but that’s because I don’t learn as effectively when I’m trying to read or pay attention to something onscreen while also listening to audio. I get overloaded. However, there are many examples of good VO in e-learning, and it is important to note that not everyone learns the same. Some people may learn better listening to audio. Some people won’t. For this reason, I like to give people options such as a mute button and/or an audio transcript.

VO is also often required to ensure ADA or 508 compliance, so it’s often a necessary evil.

E-Learning VO Tips

• For the love of all things holy, do not use robo-voice (e.g. the text to speech type of audio) in final e-learning projects. Your learners will want to kill you. Using it for scratch audio is fine in the interim, but not for final projects.
• Receive stakeholder sign-off ahead of sending VO scripts for recording – this will save you a lot of money in the event that the reviewers make considerable changes to the script during review. It will also streamline your production.
• Please, please, please, do not duplicate onscreen text and VO for the same slide content. It’s painful and unnecessary.
• Maintain the same voice throughout your script (e.g. active/passive, etc.) to ensure consistency.
• Include prompts to your narration, where necessary. For example, “Click each button to learn more.”
• Aim for brief and concise VO scripts per slide. No one wants to listen to 1-5 minutes of audio. Keep it simple and to the point, and supplement with onscreen text. Not the other way around.
• For complicated content, or content heavy in the acronym department: include a pronunciation table. Everyone pronounces things differently, and your VO artist will likely be unable to read your mind…because they’re humans too.
• For courses containing multiple modules, use the same VO artist for consistency.
• When you receive audio recordings from your VO artist, proof the recordings to ensure accuracy…because again, the VO artist is only human and humans make mistakes from time to time.

I’m not sure if anyone in the Learning and Development industry is really referring to Just in Time Training as JTT, but as a child of the 80s and 90s, I appreciate the reference (you know…to heart throb Jonathan Taylor Thomas of Home Improvement fame)…but I digress.

Just in Time Training (JTT)

JTT is just what it sounds like – training provided just in time. Or, training provided on an as-needed basis. Many employers view JTT as the key to their success – viewed as taking fewer resources than hiring and training someone new who may have the qualifications being trained. Often this is not so much a view as a means of convenience. In reality, it likely takes even more resources (human and monetary) to provide JTT as it takes 1 learner and a minimum of 1 trainer for however many hours required to complete the training. At a minimum, it takes 1 learner of the production floor (so to speak) to complete the required training. In the broader context, if self-paced training materials are available, it would have taken someone time and effort to create those materials.

So JTT is bad? 

No. No. I don’t think that’s the takeaway here. JTT has its time and place. I think JTT can be extremely effective for low-level training. For example, at the university, we teach one format that requires some equipment setup. It’s very basic plug-and-play style equipment, but it can be confusing for some academic types as the last thing they have on their mind when preparing for a lecture is setting up equipment. In this situation, a handy job aid posted on lectern provides enough JTT to be effective for most faculty members.

JTT is also better than no training at all. I used to joke that I once worked for a training company that provided no internal training. We were often awarded a new contract that used a new technology, and it wasn’t strange to just have the new technology installed on your computer, be given some deliverable dates, and be told to figure it out. I mean, we were all pretty intelligent people, so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but some of us certainly struggled with some new products over others. This is a situation where spending the human resource hours to provide JTT would have been beneficial.

Where I think JTT does not have a place at the table is in any situation where it takes the learner more time and effort to receive the training than is necessary. For example, for a project that has a 4 week turnaround (or other short deadline), it seems unnecessary to spend 1 week receiving training. I experienced this once with a client who sent me to do data collection. Sure, the added context of sitting in on a week of training was great, but just having all of the client materials would have sufficed. I left the week of data collection feeling like I had received some JTT in an industry for which I would seldom use the information, and when I began working on the project, I found myself consulting the client materials more than I found myself consulting my own notes from that week of training.

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