On Bad eLearning Narration

December 7, 2009

When a colleague approaches you with the teaser “You just GOTTA hear this,” you know you’re in for something truly great.  And of course by truly great, in most cases, I mean truly bad.  And truly bad is exactly what it was.

And what it was was an eLearning course – narrated, produced and published by a peer in another department (and other state). Now, if you follow this blog, you know I’m a firm believer that just about anyone can effectively narrate an eLearning course – given a good script, the right equipment, and some common sense.  That said, we have all been subjected to commoner narration gone horribly wrong. And this was exactly the case here.  This particular narration was a textbook example of what not to do.  It was as if he had followed a checklist of Dos and Don’ts but had mistakenly confused the two columns.

Poor equipment (i.e. $10 headset microphone): check.

Recording in the office with too much ambient noise: check.

Trying to read the narration on the fly while fumbling to manually time the animations: check.

Lots of pregnant pauses, dead air, and voiceless mouse clicking: check.

These missteps guaranteed disaster, but what truly took this narration to epic un-greatness was the delivery style.  So over stylized and overdramatized that my first thought (which I inadvertently vocalized) was “Where’s the Benny Hill background music?”  The faux folksy enthusiasm gave the narration a distinctive Hee Haw vibe.  The adjective “cringeworthy” in this case would be too kind.

It seems the first instinct of a non-professional narrator when the recording light goes red (after panicking, of course)  is to make every attempt to sound like their idea of a professional narrator.  You know, the guys drop a full octave to try to sound as low and resonant as possible (Voice of God – gone wrong) and the gals jump a full octave for that dainty feminine touch.  By adding as much dramatic flair to the script as they can and rolling the inflection like a Six Flags coaster, they hope to pull off the charade.  If a little inflection is good, you see, then a lot of inflection must be better!  Enunciating every syllable with the care and attention of a diamond cutter and speaking unnaturally slowly to allow the listener to savor your words make the auditory illusion complete.

Unfortunately, these amateurish tricks almost never work.  Typically the results of such an approach are catastrophic.  There are a few things the non-professional narrator needs to recognize – and accept.

First: You are not a professional voiceover artist – but that’s OK!  You don’t really need to be.  This is an eLearning course, not an animated Disney feature. When was the last time you left a classroom-based course and thought “Wow, that instructor had a terrible speaking voice!”  Probably never. It just doesn’t happen.  Sure, we’ve all had bad instructors with terrible delivery, but their voice quality (aside from volume level) is typically not the issue.  All of us have “good” voices, in our own unique way.  Sure, we don’t all sound like these guys, but that’s why these guys get paid the big bucks:

Second: Your voice doesn’t sound as bad as you think it sounds.  We all hate the sound of our own voice.  I’ll bet even James Earl Jones cringes a bit when he hears his own voice on playback.  It’s human nature.  I hated the sound of the first course I narrated.  I thought for sure everyone else would hate it too.  Then I started getting positive feedback.  Surprisingly, they liked me.  They really liked me!  And they’ll like you too – if you can avoid the missteps of my Hee Haw-loving colleague from my example above.  (Sidenote: I still hate the sound of courses I narrate.  I’ve learned to live with it.)

Third: Delivery, not the character of your voice, is the key.  If you can read a script and sound like the natural you, you’ll do just fine. You don’t want your eLearning course sounding like those Hollywood voiceover guys anyway.  In fact, from my perspective eLearning narration that’s too good often comes off as synthetic and disingenuous.  And no one would necessarily want to listen to one of the guys in the video above narrate a two-hour course on sexual harassment.  Please folks, leave the dramatics for the movie trailers, the audio books, and the radio commercials – and the professionals who voice them.  Natural is what you’re looking for.  Like you, George Clooney doesn’t sound like James Earl Jones, but he can still do a good voiceover.  Why?  Because he knows delivery.  Actors aren’t hired because they were born with golden pipes.  They’re hired because they can recite a script and make it sound real.

Fourth: a good narration starts with a good script. Bad script = bad narration, no matter how great a narrator you are. Be sure to give your script plenty of attention before you start recording. Pare down unnecessary wordiness. Use contractions for a more informal tone. Inject a little humor to help connect with the learner. No one likes a stuffy classroom instructor, and the same applies to eLearning.

Voiceover professionals are a great source for advice on writing narration scripts. See Steve Anthony’s suggestion here, and check out Shelley McIntyre’s excellent document on formatting your script for voice talent (which could be you or a hired voiceover pro).

And of course there’s no reason you can’t (or shouldn’t) pay for voice talent if you have the resources to do so (and lack the time to do it yourself).  There are plenty of talented and experienced professionals that can provide a high quality narration that doesn’t sound unnatural (read: “too Hollywood”) or disingenuous.  You simply need to tell these folks what you’re looking for – and provide a script that reflects the style you’re after.

For the love of all that’s holy, please, please (please!) avoid those robotic auto-voices you see advertised for eLearning development. Shun them like the plague. Sure, clicking a button and watching your script get auto-narrated is an appealing prospect for many reasons – the benefit of your learner not being one of them. Nothing tells your learner you don’t care about them (edit: you really, really dislike them) than to subject them to these ridiculously phony narrations. And anyone with an ear can recognize these as phony by the end of the first sentence. How would you like to sit in a classroom and listen to an animatronic “instructor” synthesizing a canned script? Yeah, me neither. People like to listen to real people, especially when they’re trying to learn, and people are never going to embrace eLearning until we can inject some humanity back into it. Your learners deserve a narration voiced by a real human – and the time/money it takes to do it.

I often define the sound and style of eLearning narration I enjoy as “natural.” But what is “natural” exactly? I’m not quite sure how to define it, but I know it when I hear it. And so do you. But how can you accomplish it? To start, by avoiding the obvious faux pas outlined above. Also, try to read your narration at the same pace and style that you would normally speak it. Yes, it sounds much easier than it really is. This will require some practice. As I record, I find it helpful to read ahead several words with my eyes so I can verbalize the script at a natural pace. You will likely end up with more errors this way (necessitating more takes), but the end result will be worth it.

Here’s an example of a screencast narration that to me sounds natural and authentic, making me feel comfortable as the learner/listener:

Note the natural (read: fast) speaking pace, genuine-sounding enthusiasm and friendly, approachable tone. Would this guy be hired for a movie trailer voiceover? No way. But he sounds great in this context. And you can too, if you can just avoid the temptation to try too hard.

With a small investment in some quality recording equipment (see some of my equipment reviews on this blog), a good script, and a smart approach, you too can create your own eLearning narration that your learners not only won’t be repelled by, but will actually enjoy. And when a learner enjoys a course, odds are pretty good that he/she will actually learn something from it.

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Posted in Audio, Narration, Rants