Last updated:
10 hours ago
A screencast is a video or animated image of what is displayed on a computer screen to show readers what the instructions in Knowledge Base articles are telling them.
Table of Contents
Before you create a screencast
- Try to present Firefox in its most familiar form.
- Use as many default settings as possible.
- Use the default Firefox theme.
- Use the default operating system theme.
- Lower the screen resolution or do not capture the entire screen, so it will fit in the browser window.
- Make sure there's enough context to know what the image is of.
- If speaking, make sure you speak clearly.
- Don't add unrelated background music - it may annoy some users.
- Screencasts should only be applied to step-by-step instructions.
On Windows, How-To Geek has a great article on recording your screen, and, of course, there are plenty of videos on YouTube on how to create a screencast.
Tips for creating screencasts:
- As with screenshots, it's best to create a separate demo profile, so you a) know that you're using the default setup, and b) aren't broadcasting any private information from your main profile.
- Record a rough walkthrough of the screencast, so you know what you materials you need to set up for the main recording.
- Write a script before recording.
- Try to speak more slowly and clearly than you normally do.
Software
Windows
Mac
Linux
- VLC (free)
- recordMyDesktop (free)
Add your screencast to an article
Once you've uploaded your video to YouTube, you can add it to a new article (see Create a new Knowledge Base article) or to an existing article (see Edit a Knowledge Base article).
Use the following syntax to add the screencast to the article content:
[[Video:URL]]
Examples
Thunderbird and Gmail article:
[[Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXs_YE9QyUQ]]
When and how to use keywords to improve an article's search ranking article:
[[Video:http://youtu.be/rkuW5oTNTH8]]
