✦ Task type · Creator work
Walkthrough videos are better when the narrator just learned it
An expert cannot make a beginner's tutorial. They have lost access to the confusion, and the confusion is the content.
The best walkthroughs are made by people close enough to the learning curve to remember where it was steep. That window closes fast, which is why buying it from someone outside your team works.
What to put in the public brief
- That screen recording plus voice narration is required
- The rough product category and platform
- Target length and the flow to cover, as a start and an end point
- The licence, in plain terms
- Whether their face appears at all
Keep product access and any credentials private.
What to put in the private instructions
Give access and a named endpoint
"From account creation to a shared link" defines the video. Without an endpoint you will get a tour.
Ask them to do it once untimed first
Then record the second pass. The first attempt is where they get lost; the second is what a viewer can follow. Paying for both is what makes the second one good.
Ask them to narrate the wrong turns
Not to edit them out. "I thought that was in settings, it is actually here" is the most useful sentence in any tutorial and the first thing polish removes.
State the resolution and whether to hide personal detail
Notifications, bookmarks, other tabs. Cheaper to say than to redact afterwards.
Proof worth requiring
Ask for
The raw recording with audio as a single file, and the endpoint they reached.
Do not ask for
An edited, music-scored final cut. Amateur editing on a screen recording is where these go wrong, and you can always cut a raw file yourself.
When this task type is the wrong tool
If you need a polished product film, this is not it — brief a producer with a script.
If you want to know where people get lost rather than a video about it, an onboarding test answers that faster and costs less. Do that first, then commission the walkthrough once you have fixed what it found.
Common questions
Should the narrator know the product?
No, and this is the counterintuitive part. Someone who learned it yesterday narrates the parts a veteran skips without noticing. If you want polish, hire a producer; if you want a tutorial that works for new users, brief someone who was one recently.
What reward is fair?
Twenty-five to fifty dollars for a three to five minute screen recording with narration. It is genuinely more work than it sounds: a usable take needs a rehearsal pass, and the second attempt is always the one you use.
Can I use this as marketing?
Yes, with a licence stated in the brief and a disclosure if it runs as advertising. Say up front which it is, because a tutorial commissioned as support content and later cut into an ad is the version that surprises the person who made it.
How do I stop it being twenty minutes long?
Name the endpoint. "From signup to your first exported report" is a scope. "Show how the product works" is an invitation to cover everything, and you will pay for footage you never use.
Thinking of taking this task?
The same job, from the other side. Rewards are set by the poster, so treat these as the range this task type usually sits in rather than a promise.
- Usually pays
- $25 to $50
- You need
- Screen recording plus a microphone
- Proof expected
- The raw recording with audio, as one file
Not knowing the product is the qualification here. Narrate the wrong turns rather than editing them out; those are the most useful seconds in the whole video.
Create a worker accountBrief a walkthrough
Set the reward, the flow to cover and how many versions you want. Workers reserve a spot; your product access stays private until they do.
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