Post-Production - Do you give enough time to read texts in your videos?
Last updated by TobyGoodman about 4 years ago.See historyAdding texts to your videos can be very helpful to secure information in viewers minds. You must make sure the text is on the screen enough time for all readers to read it until the end. You don't want comments like "Leave more time for text, almost all of them I didn’t have time to read".
The questions is "How long is enough?"
As a starting point, a safe way to measure is to leave it on screen long enough to be read at least 2 times (Assuming slow readers read at 200 words per minute).
Depending on the complexity of the text, either way can be excessive or maybe too fast, but most times it will give you a good idea of how long you should keep a text on your video.
Another way to calculate durations is by using average reading speeds per word and adjust duration according to the number of words. A calculator is available at Omni Calculator. While appropriate for some types of productions, in general, this can become too time-consuming.
See some examples:
Figure: Good Example - Video Title duration is perfectly timed and can be read twice through. Not too short, not too long.
This rule is not relevant to closing credits due to the large amount of acknowledgements.
