How to build a Zooniverse Project
Top ten tips for writing a great Zooniverse tutorial
- Don’t reinvent the wheel
Before you get started, take some inspiration from the excellent tutorials of these Zooniverse projects:
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/lawildlife/wildlife-of-los-angeles/classify
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zhcreech/castaway/classify
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/yli/humbug/classify
- Introduce your project
On the first step of your tutorial include a sentence or two to welcome volunteers, describe the broad context of your project and its research goals, and give a brief overview of the task.
- Describe the task
On the following steps, explain how the task should be completed. If there are particularly common challenges associated with task completion, include a step to describe these. Add less common issues to the Field Guide, FAQs and Talk, but make sure to mention any additional resources in the tutorial (note, the last step of your tutorial is a good place to put this information!). If your project has multiple workflows with different tasks, create a different tutorial for each.
- Include descriptive titles
Add a brief title as a header to each step to succinctly summarize what part of the task is being described. Check out HumBug (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/yli/humbug/classify) and Wildlife of Los Angeles (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/lawildlife/wildlife-of-los-angeles) for good examples of how to use descriptive titles.
- Short is sweet
A very long and wordy tutorial can make simple tasks appear more complicated than they actually are, which can discourage further participation in your project. Keep both the number of steps and the word count for each step as low as you can, while sufficiently describing the task. Reducing the number of instructions per step can make your tutorial more readable.
- The power of pictures
Use clear and high quality images to communicate the task (but try to avoid file sizes over 256 kb). Ideally, have one image per step (to avoid the need for lots of scrolling) and keep the formatting of these as consistent as you can (size, resolution etc.).
Clear and simple annotation of tutorial images (inclusion of text, arrows, circles etc.) is a powerful way to communicate complicated tasks, but please ensure your tutorial remains understandable with a screen reader so that your project is accessible to our visually impaired community.
Finally, don’t forget that it’s possible to use videos in tutorials.Take a look at the tutorials of Solar Stormwatch II (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/shannon-/solar-stormwatch-ii/classify) or Milky Way Project (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/povich/milky-way-project/classify) for examples of how videos can be used.
- Sparingly embolden
Use bold to draw attention to the key terms or requirements on each step.
- Assess readability
Your tutorial should be as accessible and understandable as possible. Avoid jargon and use common language conventions. You can assess the readability of your tutorial here https://datayze.com/readability-analyzer.php. We recommend aiming for an 8th grade reading level or below.
- Proof-read
No one licks a typo.
- Finally, mind your Ps and Qs
Most importantly, in your final step make sure you thank volunteers for their effort on your project!
You can read more about Zooniverse tutorial design in this publication from Holly Rosser and Andrea Wiggins.
Zooniverse 