Turned out to be a very interesting day.
Finally started using Camtasia Studio and Step Shot Guides – two great screen recording and screenshot steps recording apps I had bought at bargain prices at AppSumo (an online deals website for Web Professionals and Entrepreneurs).
Camtasia Studio
I had purchased the Camtasia Studio License in 2015 and found that it was only valid for version 8…the most current version is 9. But still it turned out to be a great learning experience using it.
I had to record the purchasing process on our website of various products and share improvements. Camtasia Studio made it very easy. Though I was not asked to present in a particular format, with Camtasia I could capture the entire flow as a video, edit and mark screens where the experience could be improved using captions and callouts (a sample screenshot above). The learning curve was quite minimal and the interface was very intuitive and quick to use.
When you export the videos as mp4, the rendering time is a bit steep depending on the length of the video. but worth the waiting time.
The product owner found the video very helpful. Guess videos are more communicative about the actual process than screenshots.
Step Shot Guides
I also decided to capture one of the purchasing process using Step Shot Guides – a very easy to use ‘process and steps’ recorder. I had bought this as a lifetime deal on AppSumo, I think for around $49.
The cool thing about Step Shot Guides was that at every mouse click, a screenshot is taken and finally all are presented to you in a PowerPoint style interface, where you can add your comments on the screenshots you want. A sample screenshot below:
From their website:
StepShot Guides
A neat cross-platform instrument for bloggers, students, and training specialists who are sick and tired of spending hours on explaining how things work.
- automate process capturing through automatic screenshots and text data generation;
- annotate screenshots in bulks;
- Exporting to PDF document or presentation or publish to WordPress to make your guide available online.
The above two tools are great for UX / customer support /documentation work. I totally got into the flow and optimal zone when learning and using them. I had to give in around 3 processes by the end of the day and managed to meet the deadline.
What tools do you use for your process/screen capture? Would be great to know. Do share in the comments.