Put a Little Jing in Your Pocket: Better Communication Through Screencasts
You may have used a screencast tool in the past, but if you haven’t tried Jing from TechSmith, you’re missing out on one of the easiest ways to share your screen activity quickly, easily, and for free.
Screencasting is essentially the process of recording and broadcasting the activity on your computer screen and in most cases, accompanying the video with a vocal narration.
Jing’s user experience is top notch, and the system allows you to immediately send your screencasts up to Screencast.com, save the file on your computer, or FTP it to your own server.
Recording time is limited to 5 minutes per screencast. This is actually a good thing, since it keeps you on task and makes your screencasts more likely to be viewed. It also helps keep the file sizes manageable. Break a larger topic into “chapters” and create separate screencasts for each. You can easily link to each one and paste all into an email or a blog post. Be sure to give meaningful titles to each one so they’re easy to find in your directory and on Screencast.com.
Jing Pro (only $14.95 per year) allows for instant upload to YouTube and other video sites, smaller file sizes, premium video format, and a white labeled experience without Jing branding.
Of course, it’s better to see it than read about it, so check out this overview video.
The Benefits of Screencasting
The possibilities are endless, but here are some of ways I use it.
- Get proposals accepted faster by going over the main points in a screencast. No need to wait for multiple stakeholder schedules to synch up.
- Offer an explanation of a complex service offering to a prospective client that they can watch on their own time
- Conduct a user experience assessment of a web presence
- Walk through a defined strategy for a sitemap or wireframes, or review web analytics findings and recommendations
- Offer feedback on design or development iterations
- Demonstrate how to use a particular tool or application
If you’ve got lots to say, and five minutes at a shot isn’t enough for you (although in most cases it ought to be), there’s always Camtasia Studio (also from TechSmith) which comes with detailed editing features and much more.
Whichever tool you use, incorporating screencasts into your project communication will save you time and make you more effective. Screen…Microphone…Action!
