Ideas for a better approach to a lazy load message

Question

I have a mobile web-app with some Youtube videos embedded. All of them are loaded lazily, which means that if you don't tap on the image, the video doesn't load.

Due a technical restriction on mobile devices is very difficult to get the video autoplayed when it loads, so you have to tap once again to play it.

My first approach was placing the video thumbnail and a play icon over it, but it is kind of confusing because when you tap on it once the Youtube video loads with YT play button.

My second approach was to insert a text on the thumbnail that shows a message saying something like "hey, if you tap, y'll load the video".

As regards to the message, what would be the better option? "Load video", "Watch video", "Tap to load"...

Answer 1

Regarding your message, use a verb that clearly states what will happen when the user clicks on it. "Tap to watch".

To reduce confusion, link text should explicitly state that it leads to an action and not just to a new page. It's not enough to communicate this info in the surrounding text; users often scan Web pages for the areas they can act on. Thus, you should assume that most users will only read the link text. In fact, users often read only the link text's first few words, so it's important to start with a word (typically a verb) that indicates the action that results if they click the link.

Source: Command Links by Nielsen Norman Group.

On iOS, it replaces the play icon with it's own icon just like Youtube does. Maybe it's an idea to tell the users this beforehand. See the image below.