Screen recording

A screen recording question asks participants to record their screen while they talk you through what they do. Use it to watch someone shop online, use an app or fill in a form. The recording arrives as a video, with a transcript of what they say and, when AI is on, the text that was on screen.

Add a screen recording question

1. Open a task from the Tasks tab.
2. Under Add a question, click Screen recording.
3. Write the question, for example "Show us how you book a table, and say what you think as you go."
4. Click Save question.

A screen recording is a video question with the Screen recording box ticked. You can also tick this box on an existing video question to turn it into a screen recording.

The question's summary reads, for example, "Screen recording with voice, up to 5 min".

Settings

• Longest video (seconds): from 10 to 600. For a new screen recording question the default is 300, which is 5 minutes.
• Shortest video (seconds): must be shorter than the longest. The default is 0.

Also allow an existing video has no effect on screen recordings. On phones, participants always upload the recording they made with their phone's own recorder.

On a computer

Participants tap Record your screen. The browser asks them which screen, window or tab to share, and asks for the microphone. Recording starts as soon as they choose.

• Their voice is recorded. If the browser shares the computer's sound too, that is recorded as well.
• A timer shows how long they have recorded and the maximum. Recording stops at the maximum.
• If they stop sharing from the browser's own bar, the recording ends.

If they do not allow screen sharing, they see "Screen sharing was not allowed. Press the button again and choose a screen or window to share."

A computer whose browser cannot share the screen shows the phone instructions below instead.

On a phone or tablet

Phones and tablets use their own screen recorder. Participants see this text:

"Use your phone's own screen recorder, with the microphone on, and talk us through what you do. Then upload the recording here."

Then the steps for their phone:

• iPhone: open Control Centre, press and hold Screen Recording, turn the microphone on, then Start Recording. Tap the red bar at the top to stop.
• Android: swipe down twice from the top, tap Screen record (you may need to add it to the tiles), choose to record sound from the microphone, then Start.

When they have finished, they tap Upload the screen recording and pick the video. A recording longer than the maximum is not accepted. They see "This is too long. The maximum is" followed by the time.

The Participant preview shows "Record your screen" and "On phones: use the screen recorder, then upload". See Preview a task as participants see it.

On screen: the text in the recording

When Write transcripts and read photos with AI is ticked in Edit study details, Zolensa reads each screen recording. It looks at frames a few seconds apart, skips the ones that look the same as the one before, and writes:

• the text that can be read on the screen at each moment, with its time. This is read on Zolensa's own server, without AI.
• one sentence on what the participant does on screen. The AI writes this from a few frames, when a provider that reads images is set up.

On the Responses tab, this shows under the video as On screen, with the sentence and "Text read on our server, description by AI." Open it to see the list of times and texts. Click a time to jump to that moment in the video. Frames with nothing to read are left out.

The text on screen is also used for:

• search on the Responses tab
• the column "Seen in photos and screens (AI)" in the CSV export
• the AI analysis

What participants say is transcribed like any other video. See Review responses and Export answers and highlights as CSV.

Tip: Ask participants to close private tabs and messages before they record. Everything on the shared screen is in the video.