Why I Do Both Written Content and Videos
April 23, 2025Tags: community, training, content-creation
Yesterday, I was watching Ted Young stream on Twitch. He streams on things like Java, Java Spring, and testing. He also is in the Domain-Driven Design community, which is how I found him.
One of the audience members was asking him about Spring Academy and recommendations for learning Spring stuff by watching videos. I suspect that Spring Academy has a lot of written content, and the audience member wants to learn more from watching videos. For those wondering what Ted recommended, go check out Dan Vega’s videos on Spring. Dan does a lot of video content in the Java and specifically Java Spring spaces. (Also, he’s a fellow Clevelander - which makes him that much more awesome in my book!)
That got me thinking about the story I want to share, which is… why I create content that has a written component and a video component.
While I don’t do it as much here on my personal blog, you can see this in action on the NimblePros YouTube channel, the NimblePros blog, and in my courses on NimblePros Academy.
If you prefer videos, you can see this one here:
Different Learners for Different Reasons
Most of my content is tech-related or human-related for techies. So I know that my audience is mostly neurodiverse and in all different neuro realms. Our brains all work differently.
I’m not going into the whole learning styles and those things that are debunked. That’s not what I’m talking about.
Personally, each of us find what works because of the way we are, individually. The fact is that if someone has an auditory processing disorder, when they say they learn better by reading, it’s because the auditory part may not process the same way. There’s the “why” someone says they learn a particular way that needs to be understood more. When people have reading disorders, they may have trouble with the written because of how their internal functions process things. So if they prefer video, maybe it’s because their internal processes do better with that. But I digress…
Not everyone learns the same way. I know from talking with close friends that there are some people who struggle with the reading part. They reread parts multiple times and get distracted. So forget processing what they just read. I see this a lot with my peers.
Then there are those of us who struggle processing audio. For me, if I have to watch videos, I need captions or subtitles. I need them done nicely. So when you see my videos - more often than not, I’ve written my own captions. Especially when I get into the technical parts - the domain-specific terms get butchered by the auto-generated captions. Crappy captions make me prefer video less. But I still make the videos because I know I have friends who prefer their content delivered that way.
Give me written materials and step-by-step guides, and I’m good. If I have to watch a video and it has good captions, then give me the ability to control the speed and pause things as I need to process them. If they have crappy captions, I won’t fight through the training - I’ll tell you it sucks and won’t waste my time. I’m at that point in my life where I’m confident on why I process things certain ways and will work well if certain accommodations are in place.
Inclusivity
While I don’t always understand where t hey’re coming from because it’s not my experience, I still want to do what I can to reach out and include the audiences of both if I can. My audience is diverse, and I want to meet my learners where they are. I do that in my live classrooms as well. When I know that my students need help and are struggling, I find out what the problem is and then fill that gap with {more examples, more videos, more written guidance}.
Conclusion
So that’s why I do video and written materials. It’s because - personally, I don’t learn that well from videos. I’m the one not watching them because the captions are poorly done. But written makes sense. However, I also know that lots of people learn from videos, and I want my messaging to get there as well.
That’s my story!