My first screencast
A couple of weeks ago I recorded my first real screencast. It's a demo of Kiiro, our project management and collaboration application for SharePoint.
I thought it turned out reasonably well--I'd watched a lot of screencasts before recording this and knew that about 90% of them were half-assed. I wrote a quick script, did a few takes and kept this one because it felt somewhat smooth but not so polished as to be inauthentic.
However, when I showed this to some co-workers and advisors they immediately commented on my vocal pauses and occasional screw-ups. They were saying I sound like an amateur--which is exactly what I am.
I think I've realized (over the past few years of watching YouTube) that production values and quality aren't so tightly coupled anymore. For example, Matt NL shared this hilarious-but-crappy video at the office this afternoon:
I'd say this is funnier than three quarters of the sketches on Saturday Night Live. But the production values are dismal. And for me this isn't a problem.
But there are people--and more important than mere people, customers who might buy our product--whose mental model of video is still largely shaped by television instead of YouTube. For me, these professional production values are often an impediment to just getting something out there [*]. But if they help turn prospective customers into purchasers, I'm there (though a bit reluctantly).
So I'll probably re-record this in a couple of weeks with fewer mistakes and a better intro. One person even suggested I use a woman's voice instead of my own--might do that too.
[*] Analogy: Did Guided by Voices make better music when they were produced by Ric Ocasek? No, but they certainly made less music.
By day Gene Smith is a principal with nForm, one of Canada's leading user experience consulting firms. By night he writes about information architecture, interaction design, community, the web and other such topics. 
