Record tutorials people can actually follow

Most screen tutorials fail in the same way. The person recording knows the software so well that they move fast, click things without saying where, and finish a ten-step task in forty seconds. The viewer pauses, rewinds, squints at the corner of the frame, and gives up.

None of this needs a better microphone or a video editor. It needs a plan, a slower hand and a way to show people where to look. Here’s a method that works whatever you record with.

Plan the steps before you press record

Write the task down as a numbered list first. Not a script, just the steps:

1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Notifications.
3. Find the app in the list.
4. Turn off “Show previews”.

Doing this does three things. You spot steps you’d have skipped because they’re obvious to you. You find out whether the tutorial is really two tutorials. And you know in advance how many numbers you’ll be putting on screen, which keeps the recording tidy.

If a list goes past about seven or eight steps, look for a natural break and split it. Viewers cope better with two short videos than one long one they have to scrub through.

Set the stage

Before recording, make the screen easy to read:

• Close what isn’t part of the tutorial. Stray windows and browser tabs are distracting and date the video.
• Turn on a Focus mode so notifications don’t pop up mid-take.
• Make things bigger. Increase the text size in the app you’re demonstrating, or zoom the browser. Your viewers may be watching on a phone.
• Record the whole screen. If you draw on screen while recording, a window-only capture may leave the drawing out. A full-screen recording captures exactly what you see, ink included.

Number the steps live

Numbers on screen are the single most useful thing you can add. They tell the viewer how far through they are and let them match the video to their own screen.

With LivePen, the numbered step tool (key 8) places a badge each time you tap, counting up from 1. Two ways to use it:

• Number as you go. Tap a badge on each control just before you use it. Good for linear tasks.
• Number everything first. Put 1 to 4 on screen at the start, explain the route, then do it. Good for short tasks, because the viewer sees the whole shape before any detail.

If you drop a number in the wrong place, ⌘Z takes it back and the next tap reuses that number. Clearing the screen starts the count from 1 again, which is handy between sections.

Point before you click

This is the habit that makes the biggest difference. Before every click, show where you’re about to click, and pause.

1. Press ⌥⇧D to start drawing.
2. Draw an arrow to the button, or circle it.
3. Say what it is: “the gear icon, top right”.
4. Press ⌥⇧D to stop drawing, then click it.

The pause between pointing and clicking is where the viewer catches up. Without it, the menu has opened and closed before they found it.

The arrow tool (key 3) draws a straight arrow. The freehand arrow (key 4) lets you draw a curve and puts a head on the end, which is useful for pointing around something rather than across it.

Highlight the setting that matters

Settings pages are dense. When the step is “change this one option”, draw a highlight over its label or a rectangle around the control. The highlighter (key 2) is translucent, so the text underneath stays readable. A rectangle (key 5) works better for toggles and fields where there’s no text to highlight.

Keep a consistent colour language

If you record more than one tutorial, decide what each colour means and stick to it across the series. For example:

• Red: click here.
• Yellow highlighter: read this.
• Green: this is the result you should see.
• Blue: a side note, not part of the main path.

Viewers pick this up without being told, and it makes a series feel planned. LivePen’s six toolbar colours can be changed in Preferences, so set them once to match your channel or your product’s style and leave them.

The line styles help too. A dashed line reads naturally as “optional” or “this is where it would go”, and solid as “this is what happens”.

Pacing

Talk slightly slower than feels natural, and leave gaps. Specific things to slow down for:

• Before a click, as above.
• After a page changes, so the viewer can orient themselves before you point at something new.
• When something is typed, read it out as you type it.
• At the end, show the finished result for a couple of seconds before you stop recording.

If you’re not sure whether you’re going too fast, watch the recording back without sound. If you can’t follow it silently, someone new to the software won’t manage with sound.

Undo instead of re-recording

Mistakes in the drawing don’t mean a new take. While drawing is on:

• ⌘Z undoes the last stroke. Keep talking while you do it and most viewers won’t even register it.
• ⇧⌘Z redoes it.
• The eraser (key 0) removes a single stroke without touching the rest.
• ⌥⇧C clears everything if the screen has got busy.

Save re-recording for mistakes in the task itself, like clicking the wrong thing. A wobbly arrow isn’t one.

Keep marks up, or clear as you go

By default, stopping drawing clears the screen. That keeps each step clean: point, stop, click, and the next step starts fresh.

Sometimes you want the numbers to stay while you click through them. Set Preferences → When drawing stops to Keep the drawing, and your marks survive when you stop. Remember they’re drawn on the screen, not attached to the window, so if the page scrolls or changes, clear them with ⌥⇧C.

A short checklist

1. Write the steps down.
2. Clean the screen and make text bigger.
3. Record the full screen.
4. Number, point, pause, click.
5. Use colours the same way every time.
6. Undo small mistakes instead of starting over.

Trying it

LivePen works with any screen recorder that records the whole screen, and with a 14-day free trial you can try it on your next recording. The tutorials page shows the tools in context, and the docs list every key.