Text lessons or video lessons?

When planning a course, many creators assume every lesson should be a video. Video feels more professional, more personal and more like real teaching. Others avoid video altogether because it feels daunting to record. Both approaches miss the point. The right format depends on what each lesson has to do, not on a blanket rule for the whole course.

Choosing well matters. A video lesson that should have been a page of text wastes learners' time and is hard to refer back to. A text lesson that should have been a video leaves learners guessing about something they needed to see. Here is how to decide, lesson by lesson.

Start with what the lesson needs to do

Before choosing a format, answer three questions about the lesson:

1. What does the learner need to see? Movement, a process unfolding, a technique, a tone of voice?
2. How will they use the lesson? Watch once to understand, or refer back to repeatedly while working?
3. Where and how will they study? At a desk, on a phone in spare moments, somewhere they cannot play sound?

Two more questions matter for you as the creator: how often will this material change, and which format can you produce well?

When video earns its place

Video is the better choice when learners need to see or hear something that words cannot easily capture:

• Demonstrations of physical techniques, where movement and timing matter.
• Processes that unfold over time, where learners need to see one step lead to the next.
• Tone and delivery, such as how to phrase something sensitive, or pronunciation.
• Motivation and connection. Welcomes, encouragement and stories feel warmer when learners can see and hear you.
• Complex visual explanations where you can point, draw and build up an idea step by step.

If the lesson teaches software, a screen recording is a type of video with its own techniques, covered in screen-recorded tutorials that are easy to follow.

When text is the better teacher

Text is often underrated. It is the better choice when:

• Learners will refer back to it. Checklists, reference material, formulas and step-by-step instructions are far easier to scan than to scrub through in a video.
• Precision matters. Exact wording, numbers or definitions are clearer in writing.
• Learners want to skim. Experienced learners can pick out what is new to them in seconds.
• The content changes often. Updating a sentence takes a minute; re-recording a video takes much longer.
• Learners study in varied places. Text works without sound, on slow connections and in short gaps.
• Learners want to search. A phrase in text is easy to find later.

Other formats worth considering

The choice is not strictly one or the other. Other formats sit between the two:

• Audio for reflective material, stories and interviews that learners can absorb while walking or driving.
• Annotated images for anything visual but static, such as a finished example with labels.
• Slides with narration for structured explanations where you do not need to be on camera.
• Short clips inside a text lesson, showing just the one movement or moment that words cannot capture.

A worked example: sorting a chess course

Imagine a hypothetical chess improvement membership run by a coach named Yusuf. He planned his course on openings as twelve videos. When he worked through the questions above, he ended up with a mix:

• Welcome and course overview: short video, because it is about connection and motivation.
• Why openings matter: video, with Yusuf walking through two contrasting games on a board, because learners need to see how early moves shape the position.
• The five opening principles: text, with one diagram each, because learners will refer back to them constantly.
• Common opening traps: short videos, one per trap, because the timing of the moves is the whole point.
• Move-order reference sheets: text and diagrams, because they are pure reference.
• How to review your own games: screen recording, because it teaches a process in software.
• Weekly practice plans: text, because learners follow them over days and the plans change as the course is updated.

The course now has less video than planned, but every video does something text could not, and every text lesson is easier to use than a video would have been.

Pair the formats so each supports the other

The strongest lessons often combine both. A video lesson with a short written summary and a list of key steps beneath it lets learners watch once and refer back quickly. A text lesson with a thirty-second clip at the tricky step gives learners the visual they need without making them watch ten minutes to find it. How you arrange the two on the page matters, too, as covered in where to put video on the page.

Whichever format you choose, plan it. A video lesson benefits from a script or outline, as described in writing scripts for course videos, and that script can easily become the text summary beneath it.

Choosing formats for your next course

1. List every lesson in the course.
2. For each, note what learners need to see, how they will use it and where they will study.
3. Mark each lesson as video, text or a combination.
4. Check that every video shows something that text could not.
5. Check that every reference-style lesson is available as text.
6. Plan a written summary for each video and a short clip for any text lesson that needs one.
7. Ask members after the course which lessons they returned to most, and in which format.