Glossary
Video and documentation terms, explained
- AI voiceover
- An AI voiceover is narration generated by a text-to-speech model instead of a human recording. Modern AI voices sound natural, can speak many languages and can be edited by changing the script text.
- auto-captioning
- Auto-captioning is creating subtitles automatically from a video's audio using speech recognition. It makes videos accessible and watchable without sound.
- customer onboarding video
- A customer onboarding video teaches new users how to reach their first success with a product, usually as a short series with one video per activation milestone.
- digital adoption platform (DAP)
- A digital adoption platform (DAP) is software that guides users through other applications with in-app walkthroughs, tooltips and help widgets, to speed up onboarding and adoption of new tools.
- explainer video
- An explainer video is a short video, usually 60 to 120 seconds, that explains what a product, service or idea is, what problem it solves and how it works. Common formats are animation, screen recordings of software, and presenter videos.
- interactive demo
- An interactive demo is a clickable, guided replica of a software product that lets a viewer explore key steps at their own pace without signing up. It is built from captured screens with hotspots and tooltips rather than played as a video.
- knowledge base
- A knowledge base is a searchable library of help articles, guides and videos that lets customers or employees answer their own questions. Help centers and internal wikis are common examples.
- product demo video
- A product demo video shows a product being used to solve a specific problem, focusing on the key moments that make it valuable. For software, it is usually a narrated screen recording of 1 to 3 minutes.
- product walkthrough
- A product walkthrough is a step-by-step guided tour of how to complete a task in a product. It can be delivered as a video, an interactive in-app tour, or a written guide with screenshots.
- screen recording
- A screen recording is a video capture of what happens on a computer screen, often with microphone audio and a webcam overlay. It is the raw material for software tutorials, demos and SOPs.
- smart zoom
- Smart zoom is an editing feature that automatically zooms a screen recording into the area where the user clicks or types, then zooms back out, so viewers can read small interface details.
- standard operating procedure (SOP)
- A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a documented, step-by-step set of instructions for completing a routine task the same way every time. Modern SOPs often combine a written checklist with screenshots and a short video.
- text-to-speech (TTS)
- Text-to-speech (TTS) is technology that converts written text into spoken audio. Neural TTS models produce natural-sounding voices with realistic intonation and are the basis of AI voiceovers.
- video localization
- Video localization is adapting a video for another language and market: translating the voiceover, captions and on-screen text, and adjusting examples, units and references so it feels native to local viewers.
- voice cloning
- Voice cloning is creating a synthetic voice that sounds like a specific person from a sample of their speech. It lets one person narrate many videos and languages without recording each one.