Screencastify vs. UserTesting

Screencastify is great for beginning video creators or teachers who need a tool to quickly record a screen. For those with a budget, the paid features offers basic editing and the ability to embed questions, which can make for a more polished and meaningful video. Screencastify is not for users who want to create a more polished video with an introduction or other media that needs to be included, such as background music or other images. My go to - if it's quick and easy, use Screencastify. If I want to make in-depth edits, use another solution.

Incentivized

Use UserTesting if you need to recruit participants QUICKLY to get fast results. If you're running a particularly stringent project, UserTesting's screener tool isn't the most rigorous as I've had several participants who shouldn't have qualified based on the screener questions pass through and end up as participants in my studies. If strict adherence to participant recruitment guidelines is of top priority, you might want to use a more traditional approach to recruitment.

Incentivized

• Easy screencasting
• Stores videos to the cloud/drive
• Basic editing, such as trimming
• Chrome extension is easy to install and use

Incentivized

• Post AB testing problem solving to understand why experiences didn't get the intended results
• Discovery and framing to learn what the users needs are
• Early iterative prototyping to learn what users think about new mental models and experiences
• Late stage prototyping to validate the experience
• To learn about content and what users think about it

Incentivized

• The pricing model isn't competitive in Education
• 5-minute cap on free videos can be short

Incentivized

• Missing the ability to create folders or tag tests which have been sent out in multiple or successive rounds
• Word clouds for any verbal responses e.g. describe this page in 3 words
• More logic to how highlight reels are created, or info pop ups on why they have been created/any interesting segments (this may be more of an AI part to the tool)

Incentivized

I'm very happy with my experience of the product and the level of service and learning resources they provide. If the service becomes more expensive than it currently is then we might not be able to justify additional cost - but this is theoretical. I would recommend UserTesting and would ideally renew our contract.

Incentivized

I think you could improve the usability. The drag-and-drop feature to add a new task or question is not efficient, especially on the screen to build the research. I prefer a simpler way, something similar to how the formulary tools do: try to see Google Forms and others as a reference

Incentivized

Never encountered any problems

Incentivized

Perfectly fine. Never had any problems.

Incentivized

I always had an amazing interaction with the support team at UserTesting. Every time we would even have sessions scheduled for us to review whether we were happy about the experience. I always had an option to replace participants in case something went wrong with a session. I would rate it 5/5.

Incentivized

From a technical perspective, the implementation was extremely smooth. Most of the change management / implementation hurdles were clearing use of the tool through our various security, legal, and information privacy teams. Once these concerns were addressed (UserTesting.com was very helpful in providing all the needed documentation), the implementation process was very simple and we were able to get going right away.

Incentivized

Loom and Screencastify are the most direct comparison. They both are Chrome extensions that have a low learning curve for beginner users. Loom offers a pro license free to educators, which allows for unlimited numbers of recordings and a 45-minute cap on recording length, perfect for lessons. Screencastify's pro features are paid for but are also more in-depth. Their editing is more robust, allowing users to trim in the middle, not just the edges. Users also get unlimited recordings and no cap on video length, and some storage depending on the tier purchased. Screencastify also offers volume discounts, which can help reduce the cost significantly. Educators can also create assignments in Screencastify, which is unique to this product. Camtasia is a full-fledged editor and screen recorder, so a full comparison isn't fair, since the products have two different intended uses. Camtasia offers robust features to make a polished final video

Incentivized

User Testing is so much easier to use than other user testing tools. It's also pretty good for transcription and now they do transcription in Spanish, which is also an important part of my work and that was one of the reasons I used Dovetail. Now I still use Dovetail as it's a much better option for a research repository than user testing when using multiple research tools.

Incentivized

The package we have limits the number of people who can set up tests. This prevents us from scaling the use of the platform.

Incentivized

• 150 users
• Many hours of screen recording made
• Many of users can use the free verison with no issue

Incentivized

• Cost savings of over $100K as we dont involve our research vendors as much as we used to do in the past
• Better tested experience get out in the market quickly even when we don't have enough time available with our researchers; our designers who are well-trained on usertesting.com can test out quickly

Incentivized