22 Oct User Testing Video
Our setup consists of two parts: capturing footage of the users hand interacting with the screen, and capturing a recording of the screen itself.
Capturing footage of the user:
We setup my personal Canon Rebel camera on a tripod for this. Using the video setting, we zoomed in fairly close on the user’s hand and the ipad screen. The audio was captured using some wireless microphones borrowed from Desktop Support, which are used for Dax’s speaches at the company meetings. The receiver part of the mics can be plugged into the audio input of the camera.
Capturing the screen of the device:
This part is more unique to us, as we used AirServer and AirPlay to create these videos. I would recommend Camtasia or another screen capture application that can be used for desktop computers or laptops.
Putting it all together:
The tricky part is to match up the two videos so that they are playing in sync. I ended up using Adobe Premier exclusively for this, as After Effects makes you create a RAM preview render after each little timeline adjustment in order to view your work. After dragging both videos onto the timeline I manually synced them up in a manner not unlike a DJ matching up two vinyl records. I added the text on the screen in Premier using a “title”.
In conclusion the whole thing requires some basic video skills, as well as a camera and the right software. We have found this process to be very beneficial and highly recommend it. I’d be happy to go into more detail about any of this stuff in the future.