Yesterday I was interviewed by Andy White (author of Podcasting Unleashed) on the hows and whys of screencasting for marketing software products. Some of the links mentioned are listed here.

We discuss:

• How to get started at zero cost (using Jing (Win/Mac), QuickTime Pro (Mac), BBFlashBack (Win) and RecordMyDesktop (Linux))
• Professional screencasting packages (Camtasia and BBFlashBack Pro on Windows, ScreenFlow and Camtasia on Mac)
• Tips for structuring the demo
• Tips for audio production
• (briefly) The Screencasting Handbook
• (briefly) my ProCasts for professional screencasting

My interview runs for the last 20 minutes (from 0:37:00 to 0:52:00):

You can download the mp3 for offline listening.

Recently we delivered four demo videos to Macmillan Publishing that explain their new mindOnline language-learning product to teachers and students.

We worked directly with their product lead and script writer to create four screencasts from 2 minutes to 5 minutes that show various aspects of their product.  The videos are now hosted on their main landing page and component list page.  Here’s an example:

The process included prototyping the initial screencasts, iterating with the scripter and working with a new American narrator.  Much of the material was static so we developed ways of calling out and zooming in to the material to focus on the key visuals.

The four videos are also available in our YouTube account:

• mindOnline demo video
• openMind Students Book demo video
• openMind Teachers Edition demo video
• openMind Workbook demo video

If you are interested in having demo videos like these for your product just get in contact.

I am most chuffed to say today that our screencast for the Firefox plug-in AdblockPlus has been viewed over 100,000 times since March!  That’s 566 per day – cripes!

I’m also rather pleased with the 289 positive scores and lovely comments.  Ok, ok, I’ll stop feeling so pleased!

We created the screencast with Wladimir Palant (AdblockPlus’ maintainer), the goal was to show how useful the plug-in is everyday and to show even Firefox newbies just how easy it is to get started.  In the meantime we won a few awards with TechSmith and YouTube which is rather nice too:

I’m happy to see that after participating in the beta programme for TechSmith’s Camtasia for Mac, they’ve successfully launched.

They’re listing a $99USD price (1/3 off of the standard price) during the launch period.  I was running it on my MacBook, it seems to be as solid and useful as ScreenFlow (the main competitor).

I didn’t use it so much as we were forbidden under the terms of the NDA from releasing anything we recorded – as a professional of course I like to share my work   Now that I have a full license I suspect I’ll be playing with it some more.

I’m happy to say that TheScreencastingHandbook.com, our eBook about screencasting, is now live.  Right now we have the main site online with an email sign-up box.

Today I’m fleshing out the planned chapter list, I’m hoping to have a first version of Chapter 1 ready for mid-August.

We’ve spent the last few months surveying the needs of many people so we have a pretty good idea of what we need to deliver.  As described on the site, we’ll be releasing chapters as they are written and iterating as we go, the aim is to make sure we’re really answering the questions that matter to you.

As a bonus we’re throwing in 30 mintues of email consultation with us for free (usual price: £50 GBP) and we’ve created a google-group that is only available to purchasers.

If you want to see a list of the topics we’re covering that will make you a better screencaster, sign-up to The Screencasting Handbook and we’ll keep you informed about our progress.

We’re rather proud of our latest screencam for Igor of MockupScreens.com.  Igor’s tool lets you quickly prototype a user-interface for desktop or web-based software.

“I needed a screencast for my product for quite some time, but actually doing it always got too complicated somehow. Then along came Ian and he helped me to get both the message right and the beautiful screencast online. I’m still fascinated by the ideas Ian and his team came up with to avoid any issues that arose during the making of the screencast.” – Igor Jese, CEO of MockupScreens

For this production we’ve taken a new approach:

• Richard and Ian tell the story of a Client and Consultant (this is our first 2-voice narration) working together on a new prototype
• We use a speeded-up section to build a part of the interface in just 15 seconds (this bit is very pretty!)

We’re very happy with the result – rather than just spelling out the features instead we take you on a relevant, context-laden tour of the package showing you all the tools that satisfy a prototyper’s needs.

The speeding-up with animated stop-watch is a nice mechanism to convey a time-consuming scene quickly, whilst still showing you that we start from the basics and build to the final product.

Kudos where it is due – our idea for the two narrators comes from Joel Spolsky’s wonderful FogBugz 6.0 tour where two of them lead us through a chatty tour of their bug-management tool.

Richard has a write-up too.

Update – we just won an award for this screencast from TechSmith, woot!

We’ve just finished working on the following screencast for Andy (CEO) at Orchestrate to demonstrate their workforce scheduling software.  This screencast replaces Andy’s earlier screencast that we’d critiqued, the new version appears on their Tour page.

“Working with Ian was a pleasure from beginning to end. He has a fantastic understanding of the steps involved in shooting a compelling screencast, combined with the ability to communicate with our target audience.

His approach was methodical and focused reflecting his extensive experience in this field.

I was very impressed with the new video, and we have received many compliments on how well it demonstrates the features of Orchestrate” – Andy Wright (CEO)

Our solution shows you ‘a day in the life of Orchestrate’, it shows you how easy it is to schedule jobs and see that they’re completed.

The goals are to show Operation’s Managers:

• It is very easy to learn
• Everything runs in the web-browser with no additional software
• Scheduling and rescheduling are easy
• There are no start-up fees or lock-ins
• Operatives provide a write-up after the job for Compliance
• Clients can see the status of all their jobs

The ultimate goal is to convince more visitors to the website to try Orchestrate, improving their conversion rate so they acquire new paying users without having to spend more on advertising.

Given the number of software solutions available to Operation’s Managers it was necessary for us to design the right screencast to convince them that this tool is the one they need.  Our process involved:

• Profiling the intended viewers
• Analysing the needs of these viewers
• Dropping Andy’s approach of the Feature Tour
• Adopting the idea of a story
• Story-boarding to create the right story
• Creating a script that fulfills the story’s objectives
• Recording a prototype for critique
• Creating a finished screencast
• Providing YouTube, .flv and .mp4 versions

Now we are monitoring the results to see what kind of improvement the new screencast brings to Andy’s sign-up rate.  Details on this will follow.  Richard has blogged an entry from his point of view as the animator and co-creative and client-Andy has blogged a superb entry:

“I didn’t understand how to tell an engaging story about labour scheduling software, but the team at ProCasts did.”

If you want to more effectively convert your visitors into signed-up paying users, get in Contact to talk about our Examples and how we can help you.

I’ve retired the previous poll and added a new one, you’ll see it in the right side-bar.  This time I’m asking ‘You Screencast To Make…?’ to find out if you’re making tutorials, product demos or technical support screencasts.

The previous poll showed that the majority of you use Camtasia, followed by Screenflow and CamStudio respectively.  I’ll be using this feedback when drafting our first eBook on ‘how to screencast’.

Become a better screencaster – read The Screencasting Handbook.  We’re distilling 4 years of experience into our book, the book will tell you everything you need to know to screencast faster, better and more efficiently.

Mo Flanagan uses a 27 second mute screencast to show his WindowTabs.

This was one of the first screencasts I’d seen uploaded to YouTube using HD, even though it is mute and with annotations you still get a lot of information on how the product works:

The Good:

• Short, just 27 seconds long
• High Def so the visuals are crystal-clear
• Easy to follow – the Windows are joined and separated, it all looks very easy
• Easy embedding – YouTube is used so I, as a reviewer, can easily embed the screencast here (great for wider exposure)
• Public statistics – over 1,080 views at YouTube in under 2 months so Mo is obviously getting exposure (the fact that others are paying attention gives me confidence)

The Bad:

• No narration – so no explanation of what’s going on and the benefits to the end user
• No music – music is nice to set the scene on a marketing screencast
• No call to action – I get to the end of screencast and I’m interested…but what should I do next? What if I have a question?

Improvements:

• Add narration! Tell a useful story, explain the benefits, tell the user why this is great for them
• Add a call-to-action – you’ve got their interest, tell them how to get started right now and what to do if they have a question
• Answer any fears – remind the user about the money-back guarantee (this could just be in a text call-out) and the fact that it is both easily tried and easily removed
• Add testimonials into the video – let me see Social Proof that other people are using WindowTabs and that they find it beneficial

Our screencast tutorial series gives tips on all the above points.

If you’d like a private review of your own screencasts and advice on improving their quality, we offer this as a service, just get in Contact.

CloudBerry are building a set of Amazon S3 tools, for their S3 Explorer Pro they have two screencasts which show you how to get started.  I’ll critique the first, it is shown below:

The Good:

• The video is short (2:30) and moves along at an OK pace
• The demo works fine and the product looks easy enough to use
• The video is hosted by YouTube in HD so the visual aspects are very clear
• YouTube is used so external sites can embed the video to drive extra traffic like this one.

The Bad:

• Background hum, probably from the mains electricity, this is really distracting.  There’s also some street noise near the end
• Non-native English narration – I can understand it but I’d imagine other international users might have trouble which will reduce the audience
• No call-to-action – if your viewer watches right to the end then they’re probably interested – tell them how to try your tool and how to get their questions answered
• The videos aren’t embedded in the product page but are hidden behind a red ‘Watch Product Video’ link

Possible Improvements:

• The audio must be fixed, I’ve written about how bad audio can really reduce a viewer’s perception of the quality of your product.  Always use a good mic in a quiet environment and perform an audio clean-up step in post-production if necessary
• Many frames could have been cut in post-production to cut out 15-30 seconds of dead footage
• A call-to-action at the end will remind interested users how they too can try your product (remember: Don’t Make Me Think!)
• Embed the videos on the Product page, possibly using a javascript pop-up box (like here in ProCasts), so the user doesn’t have to visit other pages to find the videos

If you’d like a private review of your own screencasts and advice on improving their quality, we offer this as a service, just get in Contact.