Recording Toolbar Redesign

 

While recording a video with Screencastify, users can take advantage of live, on-screen recording tools. These tools allow users to annotate and emphasize content in order to make their recordings more engaging.

 

Why the redesign?

 

Business Goals:

  • Buzz-worthy feature will entice users to make more videos

  • Differentiate us from every other screen recording extension

User Goals:

  • Annotate videos in real-time to reduce my time spent in editing later → allow me to create more content

  • Add excitement and value to my videos

  • Keep my viewers engaged through fun effects and useful tools

  • Fun to use!

 

📋  User Survey

Methodology:

A survey was created on Google Forms and added as an extension notification for a subset of users: Have created over 29 videos, most recent video was created after September 2020, and email started with “D,E, or F”

Key findings are based on 279 total responses (88.9% Teachers)

Objectives:

The purpose of this survey was to gather a quantitative understanding of how users are interacting with the current toolbar, highlight current pain points, and asses user needs for the new design.

  • How often are users interacting with the recording tools?

  • Do users have a clear understanding of how to use these tools?

  • Do users currently see value in these tools?

  • Insights on visual/UI preferences:

  • Size of the tools, taking up screen, etc

  • General insights around the recording/annotation toolbar.


🔑 Key Findings:

Only 1 in 4 users are actively using the recording annotation tools while filming.

  • 54% of users reported “Never” or “Rarely” using the recording tools, while only 25% said they use them “Always” or “Often”.

  • This highlights large opportunity for more education/in-product marketing to increase engagement of these tools.

The majority of users do not have an issue with the toolbar size or room it takes up on their screen.

  • 15% of users reported the toolbar size makes it difficult to see.

  • 18% of users reported the toolbar takes up too much space on their screen.

The largest opportunity areas for the tools were identified as:

  1. Increase ease of use

  2. Better communicate value and usefulness of tools.

When asked how we could make these tools better, the most popular answers were:

  • Make the toolbar moveable (drag it to other areas of the screen)

  • Be able to easily hide/show the toolbar

  • Add Stop and Pause to the toolbar

  • Add more functionality: Highlighter, Line Tool, Rectangle Tool, Laser Pointer, Blur, Green Screen, Sound Effects, Highlight/Track while reading, Insert Images (Bitmojis)

  • Video tutorials on how to use them

 

Final Design

👟 Next Steps

Answer remaining open questions:

  • Do we need to have the eraser visible at all times? (Quick tool)

  • Is the “Save Mouse” action clear enough to users?

  • Is it clear that the new toolbar is draggable? Are users discovering this?

  • Is it clear that the “Mouse” option is clickable?

  • Specific interaction states once live?

Short Term: Create a testing plan to asses user understanding of the new experience and identify any red flags before full roll out

Long Term: Send out a survey to assess overall project success using initial survey responses as a benchmark