Explainer Videos for Websites and Platforms

The company spent months developing a new platform. It’s flawless, intuitive and it fixes the friction that used to exist. Launch day arrives, and with it comes a question no one had thought about until then: how do you explain how the platform works to the people who are going to use it?

An email with screenshots. A PDF manual dozens of pages long. An online meeting where half the people can’t keep up... In some cases these options aren’t all bad. But they don’t solve your problem.

Why are platforms hard to communicate in writing?

Digital platforms are hard to explain in writing because they depend on sequence. That’s true of internal systems, customer apps, management portals and self-service tools alike: clicking here opens that, filling in this field unlocks that one. On paper or in an email, that logic gets hard to follow.

Video solves the problem: it shows the sequence in motion and keeps the visual context of where each action happens.

What is an instructional video?

An instructional video, or explainer video, is any audiovisual content created to teach something, such as a process, a tool or a workflow. For digital platforms, explainer videos show users what to do, in what order and why. The goal is to teach clearly, in as little time as possible.

How a platform explainer video works?

The best explainer video format for platforms combines screen capture (a recording of the system’s screen in action) with motion graphics. This makes it possible to guide the viewer’s eye, highlight areas of the interface and visually connect one step to the next.

Users see exactly what they’ll find when they open the system, while animated elements show where to click, zoom in on specific features and make the link between steps visible.

With narration to set the pace and subtitles so it can be understood even without audio, the video becomes a complete tour of the platform. Viewers will know what to do without having to read a manual or wait for in-person training.

Types of platform explainer videos:

Here on the blog, we’ve already talked about how to make an explainer video for your company, and the process is the same for platforms. It all depends on what needs to be communicated and to whom. Is the video for customers? Employees? A specific team? Does the platform have more than one feature? Here are some examples of instructional videos for platforms:

Platform presentation video: for people who don’t know anything about the system yet. It shows the problem the platform solves and the results of using it. It’s usually shorter, with very accessible language.

Onboarding video: for new users who will use the system and don’t know where to start. It’s more detailed and walks through the main features step by step. It also tends to work well when split into short modules by topic or stage.

Tutorial video: focused on specific features. It answers questions clearly: how to generate a report, how to update a registration, how to approve a request. It’s the most effective format for reducing recurring support calls.

Update video: shows what changed in a new version of the system. Shorter and more direct, it’s distributed through the channels users already use, such as WhatsApp, the logged-in area or the intranet.

Check out the video we produced for VTEX, one of Latin America’s leading e-commerce platforms:

Explainer video: where to start?

First you need to know the video’s goal and who it’s for. A video for customers, for example, starts with the problem it solves. A video for employees who will learn to use the platform needs more detail.

That’s why the most common mistake is to start recording the screen before you have a script. Everything in the video depends on it.

Explainer video script: in the script, we map the flow: which steps need to appear, in what order and in how much detail. Only after that is the screen recorded, following the approved script. Fixing the flow in editing means rework and higher costs.

Once the script is done and the screens are recorded, IRRA has a meticulous creative process to make your video perfect: storyboard, motion, editing, soundtrack and finishing. To learn more about our creative process for animated videos, click here.

At its core, a platform video is about changing behavior. You’re asking someone to do something differently from how they did it before. Behavior change needs clarity, not a large amount of information. A well-made explainer video brings that clarity at the right time, on the right channel and to the people who actually need to use the system.

We’re IRRA Studio, a motion graphics and 2D animation studio based in Londrina, Brazil, with more than 15 years of video production for companies in Brazil and around the world. Want to see how we work?

Drop us a line and let’s talk!