Captions That Explain a Demo Flow (With Examples)
A demo caption has one job: tell the viewer what the click they are watching achieves. “Create a project” is a caption. “Click the blue button in the top right” is a subtitle for the cursor, and the cursor already shows it. Most demo videos play muted, in a feed or embedded on a page, so the caption is the only explanation the viewer gets. Here is how to write them, and how to get an AI to write them for you.
Should a caption describe the click or the outcome?
| Weak (describes the click) | Strong (describes the outcome) |
|---|---|
| Click New project | Start a new project |
| Type a name in the field | Give it a name |
| Click Save | Save it |
| Click the Export button | Download the report as a spreadsheet |
| Select Editor from the dropdown | Let them edit, not just view |
| Wait for the page to load | It is live |
The strong column reads like a story in six lines; the weak column reads like a manual. When the viewer can follow the captions alone and understand the feature, the demo works with the sound off, at small sizes, and for someone who speaks the language of your product rather than your UI.
What rules hold up?
- Present tense, imperative or declarative. “Pick a plan.” “The invoice is ready.”
- Under eight words. Captions sit in a pill under the frame and have to be read in the time a step takes.
- Name the thing, not the control. The viewer cares about the project, the teammate, the report. Not the button.
- One caption per step that matters. A “wait” step that shows the result deserves a caption (“Done.”); a scroll usually does not.
- No claims. A caption is not the place for “the fastest way to” or “trusted by”. Say what happened.
- Match the product’s own words. If the UI says Workspace, the caption says workspace, not project.
What changes in a 9:16 story?
Vertical clips put the caption at the top so a thumb does not cover it, and the frame is narrower, so trim harder. “Invite a teammate” becomes “Invite someone”. Three captions for three steps is the right density; the format guide has the rest of the vertical rules.
How do you get an AI to write them?
When Klevo records a demo, the AI writes a caption for each step as it performs it, because it knows what it just did and why. The prompt sets the tone. Compare:
Record a demo of inviting a teammate on https://staging.acme.app/team.
with:
Record a demo of inviting a teammate on https://staging.acme.app/team. Captions in plain words that say what each step achieves, under six words, no button names.
The second prompt gets “Invite a teammate”, “Choose what they can do”, “Sent”, because the instruction travels into every step. If a caption still describes the control, you can say “rewrite the caption of step 2 as the outcome” and render again; the steps are saved, so only the caption changes. The recording guide shows the whole exchange.
What about captions for a help article?
Help-article demos are the one place where literal captions are fine, because the reader is trying to reproduce the clicks: “Open Settings, then Billing” is useful there. Keep them literal but still short, and let the minimal style (no zoom, no cards) keep the pace even. Demo videos for onboarding emails and help centers covers the rest of that format.
What does a full example look like?
A five-step demo of creating a project, with the captions as Klevo would render them:
| Step | What happens | Caption |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Click New project (zoom) | Start a new project |
| 2 | Type “Q4 launch” | Give it a name |
| 3 | Pick Marketing in the Kind select | Say what kind it is |
| 4 | Click Save (zoom) | Save it |
| 5 | Wait for “Q4 launch” in the list | It is in your list |
Twenty seconds, five lines, and a viewer who has never seen the product knows what a project is, that it has a kind, and where it ends up. How long should a demo be explains why five steps is the sweet spot for this kind of clip.
FAQ
Should captions be in my customers’ language? Yes. Ask the AI to write them in Portuguese or German and it will; the UI stays as it is.
Can I turn captions off? Leave the caption out of a step and nothing is shown for it. A demo with no captions at all still gets the cursor, the zoom and the frame.
Do captions go in the intro card? No. The intro card shows the title and your brand; the outro shows your call to action. Captions belong to steps.
How long is a caption on screen? From its step’s start to the next step’s start, with a short minimum so a fast click still gets read.