How to Make Explainer Videos for YouTube with Images

To learn how to make explainer videos for YouTube, start with a single question and an answer that fits in one sentence; then explain it in steps, one concept at a time, with an image on screen that shows exactly what the voice says. That is the whole trick: clarity in the script and discipline in the images. AI can help with both, but the explanation and its accuracy are yours.

What makes an explainer video good

A good explainer video answers a specific question for a specific audience. “How the economy works” is not a question that can be explained in one video; “why the price of something goes up when there is little of it” is. Three criteria to check before writing:

• The question fits in the title and the short answer fits in one sentence.
• You know what your audience already knows. Explaining something to students is not the same as explaining it to professionals in the sector: the vocabulary, the examples and what you can take for granted all change.
• There is something to see. If the explanation does not rely on any diagram, example or image, it may work better as text than as a video.

If what you have in hand is not explaining something known, but investigating something that has to be reconstructed, the format that suits you is a different one: we cover it in how to make a documentary for YouTube.

A structure that works

1. The question, posed in the first few seconds.
2. The short answer, straight away. Do not save it for the end: those who get it early stay on to understand why.
3. Why it matters: one sentence on where it shows up in the viewer's life.
4. The explanation in steps: three to five blocks, each with one idea and one example.
5. The common mistake: what many people misunderstand about the topic and why.
6. The summary: the short answer again, now making full sense.

For example, a video on how to read a household appliance's label could open with two different labels on screen, give the short answer in one sentence, explain each block of the label in three steps with a diagram and end with the most common mistake when comparing them.

Give each block a short title: it will serve you later for the video's chapters.

The script: one concept at a time

An explainer's script is written to be listened to while looking at something. Some guidelines:

• One concept per block and one idea per sentence. If a sentence needs a parenthesis, it is two sentences.
• Define each term the first time you use it, and then always use it the same way: switching words to avoid repeating yourself is confusing.
• Use analogies, but say where they fail. “It is like a tap” helps; clarifying how it is not alike stops a false idea from sticking.
• Rounded figures with their source. An exact figure nobody retains explains nothing; a round, checked one does.
• Read each block aloud while looking at the diagram that will be on screen: if the voice runs ahead of the image, the viewer gets lost.

The method for structuring the script and checking each fact is in how to write a script for YouTube.

Explainer videos with images: what to put on screen

In an explainer video made with images, the rule is that the screen shows what the voice is saying at that moment. The usual pieces:

Image	What it is for
Diagram or schematic	Showing parts, steps or relationships: the heart of an explainer.
Caption	Pinning down a key idea, a definition or a figure.
Illustration	Representing something that cannot be photographed or that is clearer drawn.
Real photo or map	Placing the topic in a specific place or object.
Screen recording	Showing how to use a program or a website.

Two tips: change the image when the idea changes, not every few seconds out of habit, and do not fill the screen with text that competes with what is being said. A gentle movement over a still image helps hold attention; the full technique is in video with images and voice.

There is a limit worth keeping in mind: among what cannot be monetised, YouTube's monetisation policies (in Spanish) cite slideshows or moving text of limited or no educational value and with little or no new information. An explainer with images is valuable for its explanation, not its images.

Explainer videos with AI

Making explainer videos with AI is reasonable if the AI does the supporting work: proposing the outline, writing a draft for you to correct, illustrating what has no image or adding a narration voice. Two cautions:

• What the video says has to be checked. An AI draft can sound good and contain errors; go over each fact with its source.
• Do not trust an image model to produce a diagram with exact labels. Check every word that appears in the image or, better, put the text separately, as a caption.

On the AI disclosure, YouTube does not ask for it for production assistance: among the examples that do not require disclosure it cites using generative AI tools to create or improve outlines, scripts, thumbnails, titles or infographics. It does ask for it when the content is realistic or has been significantly altered, for example if realistic scenes that did not really happen have been generated. The cases, with examples, are in altered or synthetic content on YouTube.

What the Estudio de Canales does and does not do

The Estudio de Canales website lists explainers among the topics it works best with, because it is designed for videos narrated over images. This is what it provides:

• A bible that sets the level. Among its fields are the target audience, the tone, the vocabulary and the complexity, and the AI receives them when preparing the script.
• Script with verification. The AI only extracts the verifiable claims from the script; all of them start without a source and become verified when a person attaches a source to them.
• Short scenes. The storyboard divides the approved script into scenes, grouping sentences up to about 22 words, and the section titles name the chapters.
• Several kinds of visual per scene. An AI-generated image, requested in landscape and without text; a caption, which is composed in the edit as centred text on a plain background; or your own asset in PNG, JPG or WEBP, or an MP4 clip, with its source and licence. A screen recording, for example, is something you make yourself and upload as your own clip.
• Movement and editing. Each image has a movement (Ken Burns, pan, zoom or static) and the editing is done in the cloud.

What it does not do: it does not draw diagrams with data or animate charts, it does not place text over the images (the caption takes up the whole scene) and it does not check by itself what you explain. Subtitles are in the package, taken from the approved script; the detail is in subtitles for YouTube. And it does not publish: you download the package and upload it yourself in YouTube Studio.

Sources consulted

Checked on 11 October 2026. We link to the original source so that you can consult the current text.

• Políticas de monetización de canales de YouTube. Google · Ayuda de YouTube.
• Avisar sobre el uso de contenido generado por IA. Google · Ayuda de YouTube.