Although there was an increase in the use of online learning during the Covid-19 lockdown, we’ve seen this trend on the rise way before the pandemic. As educators look for ways to make their learning resources more engaging. Integrating animations into courses adds to the quality of a program’s content. 

Animation-based learning uses animated videos as a visual aid to facilitate learning and improve performance. This approach is very effective across all ages: from primary school to adult education. 

Let’s have a look at some of the benefits of using animation in education for learners and educators: 

Animations Simplifying Complicated Information 

A complex subject can be difficult for the mind to comprehend. Combine this with ‘traditional’ learning tools and an audience and can quickly lose interest. Animation-based learning allows teachers to easily describe or explain complex topics that most learners find difficult to understand. Using animation enables students to visualize and understand complex subjects or processes. 

Animations Retain Attention 

As well as simplifying messages and complex subjects, animation-based learning can also help improve learners’ retention. Our brains can process visual information efficiently and quickly. According to HubSpot, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. However, combining audio and graphic learning material is an even more effective approach for easy learning retention. 

People learn in different ways. While some of us like practical learning, others prefer reading, and some are visual learners. Animations enable different kinds of learning styles to be catered for. 

Attention and Engagement 

Learners often find reading text uninteresting and not particularly engaging. Some may spend hours reading without understanding the information or absorbing it into their long-term memory. However, animations offer a faster and more entertaining way of learning. Using this learning approach can help increase students’ attention and learning rates. 

Animations Cost-Effectiveness 

There’s often a perception that creating a bespoke animation can be costly but look at it this way: your investment will result in effective, good-quality learning material that can be reused and repurposed. What do we mean by this? For a start, if your audiences include people who speak different languages, the same visual elements of the animation can be adapted with relevant dialects (or voiceovers). They have longevity and can be broken down into bite-size clips that promote a course or program through various digital channels, including social media. Learners can also watch videos at their convenience – and repeat them if they wish. 

If this has to whet your appetite add an animation to support your education portfolio. The first thing you need to consider is your audience and what you’re trying to convey. Set out clear aims and objectives; what’s the message you’re trying to communicate? The key to a successful, effective animation is thorough planning and preparation. 

Benefits of using Animations 

Animation deepens visual understanding much more than traditional diagrams 

You may have already used diagrams to explain complex ideas visually. Diagrams work, but they are not as engaging as moving images. With animation, your diagrams can move freely and express ideas and relationships that are much harder to communicate with still images or text. 

Animations omit unnecessary verbiage and visuals and allow you to communicate ideas quickly 

As you may already know, many marketing videos use voiceover narration to explain concepts that can’t be communicated visually. In animated videos, you can read these voiceover scripts faster than in live-action videos. Because animations allow you to be more selective about what you show in the frame. Simplifying the visual information presented to your audience. By reducing the total visual information in your video, you allow viewers more cognitive capacity to listen to your voiceover. 

In addition to presenting information faster. This simplification of visuals also allows you to shorten the actual length of your voiceover script. In other words, you can say less to explain more. 

Overall, animations can speed up the delivery of your content, and allow you to make a shorter video that’s just as effective, if not more effective, than a traditional live-action video. 

Animation is a cost-saving communication strategy 

If you cut your video’s play time by 25%, you reduce your production costs by 25%. Therefore animation is more cost-effective than many other popular communication strategies. 

For example, if you want to make a traditional live-action commercial with real actors, you will have to hire at least 10-15 people for at least a day. While using talented actors can be extremely effective, it is very costly, and it comes with more liability. When making a live-action commercial, you need to provide insurance to make sure everyone and everything is protected. Then, add the budget for the crew, equipment, locations, and meals. Things can add up quickly. 

By contrast, our animation projects usually require 3-6 people total from development to completion. This is a huge cost-saving measure considering we will never need to leave our houses to finish the project. We don’t need to hire cast, book locations, rent equipment, and pay for expensive insurance. Plus, because we work virtually, COVID safety is guaranteed. 

Ability to change things even late in the project 

When you are filming a live-action video with a real cast, altering footage can be very tedious or simply impossible. You won’t be able to change the cast or location after you see the first draft of your video. 

When making live-action projects, creative decisions go through an approval process between the production company and the client. These decisions often cannot be undone once they are agreed upon.  Until you film each live-action scene, the only accessible visual information you have about your video is a storyboard. Sometimes, even making the storyboard is not affordable. Often, video clients have no means to preview the outcome of a video until it’s done. Therefore it takes a large team to successfully execute a live-action project. 

When you make an animation project, you will have multiple opportunities to imagine and reimagine the final animated video, well into production. The production team will provide storyboards, keyframes, and illustrations from each scene in your video and get your approval before an artist starts animating each frame. This allows you to have a clear picture of the project before the animation process has even begun.  You can even alter the cast or locations in your animation after the animator has created a draft of the video. Note that while there are additional costs associated with making alterations to pre-approved scenes, The cost of alterations in animation is not even close to the cost of significantly altering live-action footage. 

Animation allows you to maximize the potential of your storytelling by providing a level of attention to detail and visual nuance that is much harder to execute in live-action productions. 

Impact Strategy regardless of project type 

I hope you found this information on the benefits of animation useful and insightful. In this last section, I wanted to take a moment to address something that is an essential element of creating any successful video, whether it’s animated or live-action. That essential element is what we call Impact Strategy. 

Regardless of the visual medium, you use to tell your story, the most important thing to ask yourself is “what is it that you want to tell?”. Impact Strategy is Propidium’s uniquely designed methodology to create a powerful story that will not only engage your audiences but also mobilize them to take certain actions (which should be the final objective of your video). In other words, we create videos that not only give people information but also inspire them to commit to something greater. 

However, this is much easier said than done. The power of your video lies in strong calls to action. Whether you use live-action or animation, your story should lead to a very specific call to action. When clients work with us, we help them create empathy-driven calls to action by using fact-driven creativity.