Screencasting software is a perfect tool to help with usability testing for a website or a software application. Usability testing essentially helps gauge how “usable” a site or program is: Can users intuitively find what they’re looking for? Are users taking the intended path from A to B as they navigate? How quickly can users navigate?

Even with the most well-thought-out sites, there are often surprising insights and results when they are put to their first real-world test.

When you are ready to test your website or program with real users, it’s helpful to be able to record user feedback and information so you can analyze and compare processes between individuals.

When Telestream launched its new website last year, we used ScreenFlow to record our usability testing. We set up a computer with an iSight camera and a small microphone. We launched ScreenFlow in the background so it could unobtrusively record mouse movements, keystrokes, as well as users’ narrative and facial expressions as they tried to navigate our new site.

We asked users to accomplish certain tasks on our site – such as purchase a product, find a datasheet, or get customer support. We asked them to explain their thought process out loud as they clicked through the site so we could record their thoughts as well as their mouse movements.

When they finished, we were able to play back the results immediately as a picture-in-picture ScreenFlow project, so we could talk to each user directly about certain choices they made. Also, as we went through the ScreenFlow, we could insert notes directly onto the screen, so when reviewing the movie later we had all the information in one place. It was an enormously helpful exercise, made easier by ScreenFlow’s ability to capture everything.

NOTE: Just as I was finishing the writing of this post, I saw a Tweet from a  ScreenFlow customer, Navigate Tomorrow, about how they use ScreenFlow as part of their usability testing business. See their interesting post and sample video: Usability Studies – The Why’s and How’s.

Do you use ScreenFlow in an innovative manner? Tell us your story!

Another new feature of ScreenFlow 2.0 is the ability to export a selected range of your entire screencast, not the entire presentation. And, it’s easy to do!

Step one: Select a range in your ScreenFlow timeline. You can do this either by holding down “Shift” in the timeline as you click and drag the scrubber, or you can add a Mark In Point (keyboard shortcut “i”) and a Mark Out Point (keyboard shortcut “o”).

Step 2: Once you have your range selected, simply go up to File menu, and you’ll see your “Export” option has changed to “Export Selected Range”

Then you’ll export only the range you selected. This can come in handy in several ways. One use for this would be if you wanted to insert a consistent intro into all your screencasts. To do this, simply export just your intro segment as a QuickTime movie, then when you start a new ScreenFlow project, add this QuickTime intro into your media bin and insert it in front of the content of your screencast.

There you have it – if you have a way you like to use this feature, let us all know by commenting below.

One of the many uses of ScreenFlow is as a recording device for live web events for playback later. The other day, there was a webinar I wanted to listen to, but I knew I would be in a meeting during the scheduled webinar time. So I thought: “I can use ScreenFlow to record the webinar, then put it on my iPod and listen to it while I’m on the go!” (For this particular webinar, there was very little screen activity. I was mainly interested in the audio.)

It worked perfectly!  See how easy it is to export a ScreenFlow audio file and turn it into an MP3 file in iTunes.

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When you want to use music in your screencasts, unless you create it yourself or get explicit rights from a composer, you will generally need to obtain a license to use that music.

You might think that music you downloaded on iTunes for your iPod would work perfectly… but think again! When you buy a CD, or a song from iTunes, you are really only buying a license to listen to that music in the privacy of your home or car, and in your own music player.

To use that music for your promotional screencast or podcast would require a different usage license. So what are your options? You can compose music yourself, you can find artists who are willing to give away the usage rights to use their music, you can pay per-usage fees for rights-protected music, or you can use royalty free music.

Royalty free music

For many, including me, royalty free music is the most cost-effective route. Royalty free music means that you only pay a one-time license fee to use the music, and you do not pay a per-use royalty to the composer or publisher. There are millions of royalty free songs available – usually not what you’d hear on the radio – but perfectly suitable for many projects.

Where to find royalty free music

Online royalty free music libraries abound. Most sites have a standard license agreement that includes royalty free usage for corporate, educational, and promotional videos; websites and online media such as podcasts; presentations, and promotional media. However, many sites require additional licensing for higher end applications such as TV advertising or for national or worldwide broadcasting. So be sure to check the license agreements for your particular usage before you buy.

Here are a few good-sized royalty free music libraries that I have used, or that have been recommended to me:

Musicbakery.com

• Organization: They sort their catalog by Purpose (action, horror, weddings, etc), Genre (hip-hop, rock, new age, etc) and Mood (angry, peaceful, scary, etc)
• Variations: For each track you can choose from several lengths for your download, from as little as 10 seconds to the entire track
• Cost: Music is priced by the number of seconds/minutes you want to download.   Most of the music I was looking at was around $39 for 60 seconds. But there’s not a huge range of price. The 7 second and 11 second tracks were often $27-$34– so not much different from buying the 60 second version.
• Formats: Music is available in .MP3, .wav, and .aif formats for each track

Neo Sounds:

• Organization: They sort their catalog in several ways: Music Styles, Production Genres, Mood/Emotions, Instruments
• Variations: Depends on the song. Some songs only have the full track available, others have 60 second, 30 second and several loops available
• Cost: They have more of a range of prices than Music Bakery. They have snippets for as low as $5.95. Generally, a 60 second clip runs between $19.95-$24.95.
• Formats: Music is available in .MP3, and .wav formats

This site also has sound effects. I did a search for an “eating” sound effect, and came back with 20 or so different types, including a particularly horrifying one called “Biting into flesh. Horror – Eating, biting into flesh.”

Premiumbeat.com

• Organization: Alphabetically by genre (corporate, heavy metal, soundtrack, etc)
• Variations: Music comes in only in full track or a loop set
• Cost: Full tracks are generally $25.95
• Format: Music is available in .wav format

Shockwave Sound

• Organization: Alphabetically by music genres, with a handy search box that can be limited to just a genre or to the whole collection
• Variations: Music comes in multiple versions; often tracks will have several 30 second versions, several 60 second versions a few loop sets and a full track
• Cost: Depends on the length of the track. Generally 60 second versions are $19.95 for the MP3 format, and $21.95 for the .wav format (they always charge $2.00 more for the .wav format)
• Format: Music is available in .MP3, and .wav formats

This site also has a nice collection of sound effects

The Beat Suite

• Organization: Organized alphabetically by one long list of types/genres/purposes
• Variations: Music comes in full track or loops
• Cost: $60 for full track,  $20 for loop
• Format: Music is available in .MP3, and .wav formats

These are just a few of the many sites out there. If you have a site you use that you’d recommend, let our users know!

Have you ever wanted to show a credit reel at the end of a screencast? It’s not hard to do. Check out our brief video on how to create scrolling text in 3 easy steps.

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Since we’re on the subject of using images in ScreenFlow (see yesterday’s post “Using still images in your ScreenFlow movie“) our resident ScreenFlow support guru, Willow,  has written a follow up on sizing images for the best results.

By Willow Wray

Adding images to a ScreenFlow document is easy. However, you can sometimes end up with images that are unnecessarily large and will consequently slow down the rendering and export process.  A good practice for importing images is:

Resize all images so they are 2160 pixels wide and at 72 dpi resolution.

Resizing to 2160 pixels wide gives you enough data for pans and zooms without losing image quality; at that pixel size, (which is twice the width of HighDef TV (1080)) these images can be shown on an HD monitor without worry of pixelation.

There are many photo apps that will allow you to resize the pictures. If you have Photoshop you can easily use the “Image size” feature inside Photoshop to do the resizing, making sure that the “constrain proportions” box is checked when the resizing is done. Even iPhoto will allow you to customize the size of your pictures on export.  You can choose 2160 wide in the export settings under “customize.”

Evidently there is some speculation that Apple RGB color space, NOT Adobe RGB looks better with some applications. You can try both color profiles side by side if you have the ability to do so and then import into ScreenFlow and see which one looks better.  I personally think they look identical. To convert the profiles, use the “image—mode—assign profile” feature inside Photoshop.

Save at the highest jpg level (12).  If all your photos are reduced in size you will find that everything “flows” better in ScreenFlow.

Logos, thought bubbles, arrows, rectangles… there is going to come a time when you will want to add an image or icon to your screencast.  How can you do that and what are the best formats to use?

How to add images

In ScreenFlow 2, it’s easy to add image files to your documents. Simply drag your image file into your media bin OR directly into the preview or timeline area, which will also add it to your media bin. Once it’s placed in your ScreenFlow document, you can then move your image around in your preview area, scale it, adjust its color, and add actions and transitions to it such as fade ins and outs.

What are the best formats to use?

ScreenFlow supports all QuickTime still image formats: TIFF, GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc. Usually, when I add an image, I want its background to be transparent, so it doesn’t have an ugly white square around it if it sits upon a colored background. Some formats (TIFF, GIF, PNG) offer some form of opacity or transparency.

However, in GIF files, pixels can only be either fully transparent or fully opaque, they cannot be translucent. Edges can therefore not be smoothly blended with the background, which may cause artifacts in the output video. So the best solution is to use either TIFF or PNG files. Both of these formats support partial transparency.

Where to find great images and icons

Of course, you can always create your own icons and images using Photoshop or a similar application. However, there are thousands of free icons available on the web. One of the best places to look for images is right on Google images. I did a search for free PNG images and up came thousands of sites where you can download everything from cartoon images, to mouse cursors, to standard icons.

And as a special bonus for our faithful blog readers, we’ve also created a few icons especially for you. Click the image below to download a .zip file that has speech bubbles, stars, arrows, ellipses, rectangles and a cloud — all in transparent PNG format.

If you have a favorite site you use for your images or a trick for using images in your screencasts, leave us a comment and let us know!

I’m the first to admit it: My computer desktop is messier than my teenage daughter’s room. Of course, I know exactly where everything is when I need to find it, but when recording a screencast, I generally have to make sure I have windows, strategically placed, to hide the clutter.

So no one was happier to hear about the “hide desktop” feature in ScreenFlow 2.0 than I was! No more cleaning up the clutter before a screencast! Now I can just hide it all with a click of a button. Here’s how:

First, make sure you have “Show ScreenFlow options in menu bar” clicked in your preferences.

Next, click on the ScreenFlow camera icon in the upper right side of you menu bar and select “Hide desktop”.

And the result is a blissfully clean desktop!

To show your desktop again, simply go back up to the ScreenFlow camera icon in the upper right side of you menu bar and select “Show desktop”.

Here are just a few of the many reviews, tutorials and blog posts ScreenFlow 2.0 has received in the last week. Take moment to watch (or read through) these – there are some great tips and insights. Even the most experienced ScreenFlow user might learn something!

ScreenFlow 2.0 Demo

• We’re a big fan of SoldierKnowsBest. In this YouTube video he shows how to use some of the new features of ScreenFlow 2.0.

ScreenFlow 2.0 Overview

• DanWantsTech gives a great overview of ScreenFlow 2.0 on his YouTube channel

Review: ScreenFlow 2 – Macworld.com 2009/10/27

• Reviewer Rob Griffiths provides an in-depth look at ScreenFlow 2.  “For now, at least, ScreenFlow’s combination of tools and performance makes it the best all-in-one screen recording and editing tool for the Mac.”

ScreenFlow 2.0 Review | Geek Caster 2009/10/26

• Paul McGovern reviews ScreenFlow 2.0.  “…it provides what I consider the best screencasting development solution available and is pivotal in my development of e-learning materials.”

ScreenFlow 2.0: top Mac screen recording app gets even better 2009/10/29 – TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Website)

• “Already the gold standard in the screen recording app genre on the Mac, Telestream’s ScreenFlow adds a host of goodies in its 2.0 update.”

ScreenFlow 2.0 v Camtasia for Mac 2009/10/29 – Jeremy’s Blog

• “So how do I feel about ScreenFlow 2.0 now that it’s finally here? … my initial impressions are mostly very positive and I feel glad that I made the decision to stick with ScreenFlow, despite having my head turned by TechSmith’s Camtasia for Mac.”

Camtasia vs. ScreenFlow: Creating Your First Screencast 2009/10/28 – theAppleBlog

• Matthew Bookspan provides a product comparison for newbies to screencasting. “I give the slight edge to ScreenFlow because of its ability to edit audio separately as well as its UI for editing different properties of a recording.”

ScreenFlow 2.0 Improves Video Editing Features For Screencasting 2009/10/29 – ReelSEO

• Grant Crowell interviews Barb DeHart about the new ScreenFlow release. “Listen in on how the new version’s enhancements will provide users with even better business-quality video than before.” Includes a nice overview of screencasting in general and ScreenFlow 2.0.  Click icon at bottom of the article to hear the interview.

ScreenFlow 2.0 Tutorial, Tips and Tricks Part 1 – Editing

• MacBoyProductions’ YouTube video tutorial on the editing features of ScreenFlow 2.0

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to help spread the word. We like you too!

There are some pretty nifty new features in ScreenFlow 2.0. One of my favorites is  “Curve Types”. (It’s the little things, you know?) See the video demonstrating Curve Types below:

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Do you have a favorite feature? Please share!

To embed a YouTube video in your comment, copy your YouTube URL into your post normally and add the letter ‘v’ after “http”; do not create a clickable link!
Example: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWfksMD4PAg

Embed your demo movie below, or just leave a comment telling us what it is.

If you have any features you’d like to see demonstrated here, just let me know and I’ll fit them in to future posts.