Technology Mini-Proposal

Techsmith Snagit

Snagit is an easy-to-use screen capture and screen recording application for Windows and MacOS. It allows users to capture, edit, and annotate screenshots, as well as to produce and edit basic video recordings of computer screens. The capture tool (known as the capture window) gives users the option between taking a screenshot, recording a video, or creating a scrolling capture. Once an option is selected, users can use Snagit’s crosshairs tool to select a region of the screen to record. The editing tool (known as the Editor) includes many tools for annotating and marking up screen captures, as well as tools for trimming and combining video recordings.  

I want to learn how to use Snagit effectively because it is an essential product for creating simple tutorials, guides, and other “how-to” products. Providing documentation for how to perform tasks is an essential part of training new employees, providing upskilling and reinforcement training for existing employees, and sharing knowledge within an organization. Snagit is particularly useful for breaking down tasks into concrete steps. If you’re training a workforce on how to adopt new software, creating a step-by-step guide with screenshots or screen recordings can help to shorten the learning curve and ensure that staff fully understand the functionality of the new software. I would like to learn to use Snagit’s annotation and editing tools to showcase the key features and capabilities of products in a way that I couldn’t if I was using a standard screen capture tool. 

 I will demonstrate proficiency with Snagit by creating my own instructional guide on how to complete an online task or a series of online tasks. The task(s) will be based around a series of screen captures, which I will format and order to form a cohesive document. I will use Snagit’s annotation features to add written instructions and to highlight important areas using arrows, shapes, and callouts. I’ll also use Snagit’s editing tools to crop images and de-emphasize parts of the screen captures that aren’t relevant to the specific instruction. Finally, I’ll use Snagit’s export features to convert the screen captures into a format that can be shared across a variety of platforms. 

One of the primary content requirements for this instructional guide is that it must fully explain each step of the online process that I choose to describe. The guide should be able to use text, images, and video together to form a single step-by-step document (ideally laid out on a single web page or in a PDF file). Snagit’s features support the creation of such a document—it even has several templates for creating guides from multiple images. I would also consider employees to use Snagit to record themselves walking through the process, which would confirm that they understood the guide and were able to complete the tasks. 

Techsmith Snagit Learning Artifact

In keeping with the theme of training employees to accomplish tasks within Google Workspace, I used Snagit to create a user guide for setting up email forwarding within Gmail. To make the guide, I took screen captures of each prompt that a user would encounter while setting up email forwarding in Gmail. I then annotated the images using Snagit’s Editor platform. I also created an accompanying video guide, which shows the process of setting up email forwarding in real time rather than as a step-by-step process.

Snagit has two main interfaces: the capture window and the editor. The capture window is where users select how they would like to record their screen. Once the user selects between image, video, and scrolling capture, they then use the crosshairs tool to select a region of the screen that they would like to record. The email forwarding guide that I created demonstrates my knowledge of the capture window because it includes multiple types of media and a variety of image sizes. There are both full page captures and cropped captures of pop-ups and portions of pages, depending on which size is most appropriate in the context of the guide’s instructions. I also learned how to use the video capture window to enable the recording of the cursor, so that anyone watching the video would be able to follow along with the exact elements that I was interacting with as I set up email forwarding.

The Snagit editor is an editing platform that provides a wide range of tools for modifying, annotating, and enhancing captured media. Users can use the editor to add shapes, arrows, and effects, as well as to make adjustments to the size and content of images. In creating this guide, I used the Editor to create a logical flow for the screen captures I took using the “step” tool. Each step in the guide is enumerated just above the associated screen capture to provide context for what the user is seeing. I also used the “shapes” and “arrows” tools to draw attention to the most important parts of each screen capture. I redacted unnecessary information in captures using the “simplify” and “fill” tools, which help to cover distracting text and visual elements with simple blocks. Finally, I used the “selection” tool to cut out information from the screen captures that I didn’t want to display (i.e., my personal email address) and replaced it with a fake email address that would better apply to hypothetical employees. For the video guide, I used the editor to combine multiple screen recordings into a single, cohesive video. I also learned how to use the editor to trim my footage and remove unwanted content from the recording, such as the process of two-step verification (which I have enabled for my Google account but might not be relevant to all users).

• The training that I created demonstrates my skill with Snagit in a few ways:

• It shows my understanding of Snagit’s annotation tools. I used arrows, shapes, and text to mark up my screenshots, which helps to direct users’ attention to the most important elements of each image in the guide.

• It shows that I took advantage of Snagit’s text, image, and video editing tools to transform what were otherwise simple screenshots and screen recordings into a useful guide.

• The use of the fill and simplify tools demonstrates my ability to create uniform and professional-looking screen captures.

I was able to put the guide on my website by converting screen captures and recordings from the default format (.snagx) to formats that are compatible with my website building platform (.png and .mp4).

The instructional context that I envisioned for this scenario is a company that has recently gone through a rebrand. In this hypothetical, the rebranded company decided to switch email providers, so they created a new email address (attached to a new domain) for each one of their employees. To ensure that employees don’t miss email communications that are sent to their old email address, the company’s executives asked the training team to develop a guide on how to set up email forwarding. The user guide that I created supports the necessary learning in this scenario because it provides concrete, easy to follow instructions on how to accomplish the task that the company has asked employees to complete. Each step is laid out in language that is clear and concise, and the annotated screen captures provide a useful visual to reduce the incidence of errors. The guide is also displayed chronologically on a single web page, which would make it easy for anyone at the company to access and follow. This page could be linked back to a page of compiled resources as part of a larger training program that is designed to prepare employees for the launch of the new brand.