On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:23 AM, Paper Dragon <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I was wondering if other people had a preference between diagrams or video > instructions? > I suppose, as I am most often introduced as the "video person" on conventions, it might be of interest to hear my opinion on this. I believe for most this will probably not be a black-and-white answer. There's two main aspects I want to go into in this email: First, availability. If I want to fold a model and only diagrams / video / photo diagrams / crease pattern exist, then many will work with what's available, rather than what they prefer. Some, I suppose, will simply not fold the model, but if you like a model you're simply happy for the documentation you do have access to. This is an interesting aspect, because it actually brings into the equation the designer's preference, or whoever works on the documentation of a model. Now, I have to admit I haven't diagrammed nearly as many models as I have presented in video, and most often I present a video where diagrams have already been drawn - but my impression is that - if you have a bit of practice producing a video - it can be quite a bit faster than drawing diagrams. This is especially true for 3D steps, where diagramming often needs fine-tuning to be easily recognizable. Second, quality and style. These vary greatly in diagrams and in video. For diagrams, there's the Yoshzawa-Randlett system (and related) that at least offer some standardization. Yet you can still see great differences in quality and style. You may prefer extremely precise, mathematical diagramming styles, or the more personal hand-drawn or artistic styles. With videos, in some way, there's even more variation. There's no standard so far, although as I see it a first-person-perspective is becoming common for the majority of high-quality videos. Other parameters are the video quality, lighting, whether you speed up portions of the video, whether you add verbal instructions or subtitles (somewhat related to adding text to diagrams), paper choice (related to using colors or differentiating front and reverse of the paper with shading in diagrams) - and of course the big one: how you actually present. I find instructional videos are in between diagrams and teaching - you take a bit of both worlds and merge it. So perhaps it's interesting to ask: do people prefer videos or diagrams - or attending a workshop? And of course, as already mentioned above, what about photo diagrams and crease patterns? But back to the question. How does quality and style influence people's preference? My guess is that many will prefer diagrams if they have a basic understanding of reading them if the other option is a low-quality video. And they'll prefer a clear video to very low-quality diagrams. And sometimes it's a back-and-forth. If you don't understand a step in one medium or the other and you can look at the second one, that extra data may help. So, while folding from diagrams, you may search for (or ask for) a video showing how to fold a specific step. I've seen this happen in forums - another option here are detailed photo diagrams to help people out. But let's move to the perfect world, which is probably how the question was meant. If we have access to perfect diagrams and a perfect video, which do you prefer? My personal preference will be for diagrams, hands-down. There are different reasons for it, but the main one is that I can get "into the zone" much more easily, forgetting everything around me and just concentrating on the folding. It's similar to meditation, perhaps. Note that I'm even assuming that - in this perfect world - the speed of the video is just right to fold along (for me!). So it's not just that it's easier to look to the previous or next step in diagrams, it's simply having less distraction. Diagrams are much more minimal than videos in that way. However, diagrams to me also feel much more like a solitary activity. At conventions, would I fold from diagrams or attend a workshop if I had access to both? Definitely a workshop - it's about the experience, the people, socializing. It's not just about folding, but also everything around you. And I believe that for some at least, videos aren't just easier to fold along with, but they're also more personable. It makes origami less of a solitary activity to them, even if they're still folding by themselves. (Given that I do create videos and have contact to quite a bunch of my viewers, this belief is backed by quite some data.) Most, though, that prefer videos, probably do so, because they find it hard to understand diagrams. Now, I learned to fold from books for the most part vs. being taught in person or alas from videos - not necessarily due to a person preference, but because that's what was available. And I believe that's also the case for the vast majority of the list's members. So we understand diagrams, it's how we found or love for origami, and perhaps it also adds a special fondness for diagrams. I wonder, if we started with origami only today, would we watch videos more often, especially if we hit a road-block in learning a model from diagrams? Overcoming those hurdles in my opinion leads to a better understanding of how to read diagrams, so not having had another option perhaps made it easier for us to get more expertise in reading diagrams. And once you're really good at something - well, you do enjoy it more, don't you? :) Anyway, long answer short: I prefer diagrams, but I believe videos are great for introducing people to origami, as - given high-quality presentation - it's easier for them to achieve a nice-looking model without investing a lot of time into learning how to read diagrams beforehand. And once people are hooked, they're hopefully motivated enough to then invest that time, which will enable them to tap into the huge pool of books and online diagrams and thus discover even more of the fantastic work designers have created and continue to create. And with that: happy folding - be it from diagrams or videos or photo diagrams or crease patterns or of course workshops! -- Sara
