How to Add Captions to a Product Demo Video (and Why 85% Watch Muted)
The line in the title is older than it sounds, and it is still the right reason to caption a demo.
In May 2016, Digiday reported that as much as 85 percent of Facebook video views happened with the sound off, according to publishers. LittleThings said 85 percent of its Facebook viewership played silent. Mic said 85 percent of its 30-second views played silent. PopSugar's range was 50 to 80 percent. That is publisher data from one platform in 2016, reported by Digiday. It is not a 2026 measurement of SaaS homepages, and it is not a DoDemo statistic.
What has not changed is the situation on a landing page and in a social feed. The video often starts muted. If the click only makes sense because you said "press Save," a silent viewer misses the product.
Write the caption for the silent viewer
A caption track that transcribes every "um" is a meeting note. A demo caption is a line the viewer can read while they watch the cursor.
Use the five-line script. The spoken lines that belong on screen are the problem, the result, and the action. Keep each caption short enough to read before the next click.
Bad: "So what I'm going to do now is go ahead and click the button in the top right which will open the report."
Better: "The total is too small to read." Then, on the click: "The zoom lands on the total."
Add them in DoDemo
Record the task first. Hide the recorder. Let the automatic zooms land, and keep the one on the result, so the caption and the picture agree.
Generate captions in the editor. Then tune them:
- Font, so the line is readable on the background you chose.
- Rows and width, so a caption does not become a paragraph over the UI.
- The caption box, so it sits in a margin instead of on the button you need people to see.
Read every line against the frame it covers. If the caption says "Save" while the cursor is on "Export," fix the words. A wrong caption is worse than no caption, because the viewer trusts the text they can see.
Export MP4 with the captions in the picture when the video will be uploaded somewhere that strips a separate subtitle file. A homepage embed, a Product Hunt upload, and a social post all behave more predictably when the words are in the video.
Free exports include a DoDemo watermark. Pro removes it. The caption tools are in the editor either way.
Check it the way the visitor will
Play the export with the sound off, on a phone-width window. You should be able to name the control that was clicked without hearing anything.
If you cannot, the zoom is too wide or the caption is too late. Retime the zoom, shorten the line, and export again. The launch-day version of this check is in the Product Hunt video guide.
Download DoDemo, generate the captions, and move the box off the control. Then watch it silent.