The Science Of Video Captions: How They Impact Audience Retention

Subtitles: The Three Use Cases

Most resources around subtitles are limited to this use case as it is the original intent of content captioning. In the early 2000s, Japanese content, mainly anime, became the greatest beneficiary of subtitles. Currently, Koren Media is experiencing a similar cross-cultural boom.

From Korean dramas to Japanese anime, content that has cross-cultural appeal uses subtitles to overcome the language barrier. Subtitling in this context must cover one sentence at a time, be at the bottom of the screen, and shouldn't be distractingly attention-grabbing. But unless you're creating content for a foreign audience, you do not need to adhere to these practices.

Clarity

With the advent of Web 2.0 and the consequent revolution in content creation, everyone everywhere is creating content. And not every creator who makes English content is a native English speaker. The language barrier has now become an accent barrier.

Subtitles can be used in long-form content to lend clarity to the speaker. Even in this context, the subtitling best practices state that one should use sentence-long subtitles that aren't too distracting.

Audience Retention

While subtitles have traditionally been used for translation and clarity, most creators have started using them for something else: engagement. The TikTok effect refers to the shortening of the human attention span. It doesn't matter if TikTok has made out attention spans shorter or if TikTok has succeeded because our attention spans are short. The point is our attention spans are short.

You might have noticed content on Reels and TikTok with a split screen featuring subway surfer gameplay. Initially, it was used to avoid copyright strikes when uploading clips from TV shows. But now, it is a popular content format, especially in "storytime" content. And the reason, at least according to Dr. Natalie Coyle, is the engagement bump it gives because of "visual tactility".

Subtitles in short-form content are closer to subway surfer's split-screen than they are to traditional long-form subtitles. And the reason is simple: they are meant to entrance the viewer, not translate or clarify the audio. That is why you cannot opt out of using captions just because your audio is "clear."

In an engagement-driven content cape, most creators are resorting to subtitles as engagement-bumping tools. If you want your content to outdo theirs in audience retention, you have to use the same tools. But to use a tool properly, you should know how it works.

Choose Between Lower-Screen Or Mid-Screen Captions

Before 2018, there was only one type of content captioning: the classic bottom-of-the-screen subtitles. Since the global shift towards short-form content, a new form of captions has emerged. It is the mid-screen captions, which are used in Reels, TikToks, and Shorts with audio value. It is part audio-illustrating tool and part engagement tool.

Knowing which type of captioning your videos require can help you choose the best font for it. In the section above, no font is as caption-specific as the PT Caption fonts. But since those fonts were designed before mid-screen captions were a thing, they do not work for short-form content captioning.

Ideally, your font choice would work for both short-form and long-form content. But if you only create one type of content (not recommended), then you can stick to a font that works only for that content type.

Judge The Font's Mood

Whether a font works in the middle of the screen or at the bottom in a small size, it is not exempt from the mood standard. When you look at the sample content that most font pages have, what do you feel? Noticing how a font affects your mood is a great way to judge its compatibility with your content.

A font that is overly traditional shouldn't be used for startup how-to videos. And a font that is very obviously modern shouldn't be used to subtitle the history of ancient Egypt.

Cross-Reference With Your Brand

Aside from aligning the font's mood with your content's mood, you must align the font's appearance with your brand's visual identity. If your letterhead, logo, and content text font clashes with your caption font, then you should consider an alternative.

Cross-referencing your font choices with your brand's existing font set is crucial. And if you have yet to build a font set for your brand, then the next tip is even more important.

Consider The Font Family's Versatility

The ideal font for captions has a sufficiently bold form as well as a medium-weight font. But the broader a font family, the better off it is for a content creator. Chances are, you produce long-form content as well as short clips.

By selecting a font with a versatile family, you leave yourself options for lower-screen captioning as well as mid-screen captions. And the subtitles in your long-form and short-form content match because they share a family.

Check Its Legibility At 14 Px And Aesthetics At 60 Px

To make sure that a font is legible on a smartphone, you should reduce its size to 14 pixels and look at it from three feet away. Aside from ensuring that the content you consume is visible at 14px, you should also make sure it looks good at 60px.

Some fonts are not meant to be used in big and bold text. But any typeface you plan to use for mid-screen captions must look great when blown up to a headline's size.

Check Its Legibility Against A Non-Uniform Background

Many content creators make the mistake of assuming that legibility tests conducted in a word processor are enough for choosing a caption font. You cannot be sure that a font is going to work for subtitles unless you use it in subtitles.

You can either place sample text over an image or actually subtitle a clip of your content with the candidate font to be sure of its legibility.

Cross-Check The Font's License With Your Content Goals

The final thing you must check before you start using a font for captions in your videos is the font's license. Most fonts have a free personal-use license, so you can use them as long as you're not paid for the piece of content in which they are used.

But to be extra safe, you should try to get fonts with a commercial license. Fonts that are free to use for commercial purposes are truly liberating.

You can use them in your sponsored content, ads, and even on-demand content. Even if you don't get paid for your content just yet, it makes sense not to tie yourself to a font that will eventually limit you.

Opt For Larger Captions

Traditional captioning practices recommended reducing text size to the minimum legible one. That was because the subtitles weren't meant to keep one from paying attention to the visuals. But unless you're captioning a movie, your subtitles are also a visual tool.

In a Journal of Computer-Assisted Learning study, researchers have found that "smaller text sizes are associated with decreased audience engagement". In the same study, they've also concluded that "larger text sizes can improve engagement".

So, when in doubt, go large. If you're confused between two font sizes, you can choose the bigger option. This brings us to the logical question: how large is too large?

According to several studies, "text-to-content ratios of around <span style="text-decoration:underline;">20%</span> to <span style="text-decoration:underline;">30%</span> can improve comprehension and retention of information".

Aim For 20% To 30% Of The Screen For Spoken-Word Content

This might come off as an extremely unorthodox suggestion, but it is scientifically backed. On paper, 30% of the screen being occupied by text seems like a lot. But remember that many TikTok clips have 50% split-screen with Subway Surfer. While adding a distracting visual element next to the relevant content is a great way to keep people glued to the screen, it is tacky. Do large subtitles seem equally tacky?

Watch this clip from the Oscars.

The text occupies over half the screen at one point and still doesn't look large because of line breaks. It is extremely difficult to have large subtitles without making them look intrusive. ContentFries has hundreds of subtitle templates that accommodate large text with appropriate fonts and colors optimized for engagement. So give out the auto-captioning engine a try.

The subtitling engine used for the clip above is offered by Instagram Stories. You can read our post on How to Use Instagram Story Captions. The IG Captions font is an interesting one as it aligns perfectly with the science of subtitling.

Use Sans-Serif Font To Make Your Captions Easy To Read

From Instagram auto-captions to TikTok's default title font, most social media platforms default to sans-serif typeface. And like every move any social media platform makes, the reason is engagement.

Multiple studies, including ones covered in this post, point towards the average reading speed being higher when the captions have sans-serif font compared to serif ones. Furthermore, we've found that caption comprehension is also better with sans-serif font choices.

Make Caption Fonts Bolder And Choose Contrasting Colors

You can pick a sans-serif font and blow up your captions so they occupy over 50% of the screen and still get skipped on because legibility goes beyond size. The color and weight of the font play a very important role. Traditionally, captions fonts were slim because they weren't meant to distract the viewers who were not reading them. Nowadays, everyone's following captions.

Subtitles have generally had contrasting colors regardless of content type. Yellow and White have been used with a black border or background. You don't need to undo those practices of movie captions when creating captions for your own videos.

But you must make the font bolder, so its weight allows more color to be snuck into the glyphs. Color theory states: "Using contrasting colors and bold fonts can improve the legibility of text and enhance learning."

Of course, it is a study about advertising media, but all content creators today are advertisers for their respective profiles. Your content gets discovered on the "For You" or the "Home" page of a social media platform. And only if your content is good enough does anyone follow you. Otherwise, people have a hard time watching the entire video.

View Text As Animation To Hook Your Viewers

This is a double-edged sword because if you overdo animation to the point where alphabets are flying all over the screen, you'll love your audience. At the same time, if you make your subtitles too "standard," you might not be able to entrance your audience.

Several guides suggest that "using animation, such as text that appears and disappears, can increase viewer attention and engagement”. When the text appears and disappears, your captions become an animation element. Most people look for visual distractions while consuming audio content.

When watching a video that has high audio value, they zone out of the video aspect and seek distraction elsewhere. The animation elements give visual distraction that keeps them hooked to the tab/screen. When you top seeing video captions as a comprehension aid and see them as a visual distraction, you'll understand why the content today looks like it looks.