Record Screen
ReVISit provides built-in support for screen recording and playback, enabling both in-person and crowdsourced tracking studies.
Turning on screen recording
You can enable screen recording in your study by setting the recordScreen
flag, importing the screen-recording
library, and adding the screenRecordingPermission
component to your study sequence.
Step 1: Enable screen recording in your study
Set the recordScreen
flag in the uiConfig
section of your config file. You can optionally specify the FPS (frames per second) for screen recording.
{
"uiConfig": {
"recordScreen": true,
"recordScreenFPS": 30
}
}
Step 2: Import the screen recording library
Add screen-recording
to the importedLibraries
section of your config. This makes the screenRecordingPermission
component available, which is required to request user permission for screen capture.
"importedLibraries": [
"screen-recording"
],
Step 3: Add the screen recording permission page to your sequence
Insert the screenRecordingPermission
page into your study sequence (ideally after your introduction and consent components). Any screens that follow it will be able to record the participant’s screen.
{
"sequence": {
"order": "fixed",
"components": ["introduction", "$screen-recording.co.screenRecordingPermission", "external_website", "barChart"]
}
}
Screen recording per stimulus
By default, the screen is recorded for all tasks that follow the screenRecordingPermission
page. However, we recommend only recording tasks you plan to analyze, and disabling recording for components such as consent forms or introductions.
To disable recording for a component, set its recordScreen
flag to false
:
{
"introduction": {
"type": "markdown",
"path": "example-brush-interactions/assets/introduction.md",
"recordScreen": false,
"response": [
{
"id": "prolificId",
"prompt": "Please enter your Prolific ID",
"location": "belowStimulus",
"type": "shortText",
"placeholder": "Prolific ID",
"paramCapture": "PROLIFIC_PID"
}
]
}
}
Screen recording permissions
Screen is recorded via browser, and participants will receive a permissions request from their browser to allow screen capture. If they do not grant permissions, they will be automatically stopped from continuing the study. This is done through the screen-recording
library. You can find more information in the reVISit libraries.
Participants are asked to share the study tab. In Chromium-based browsers, the study tab is usually pre-selected by default. In other browsers, participants must manually select the correct tab, which is labeled "RECORD THIS TAB."
All recorded videos are stored in Firebase storage. To download participants's screen recorded videos after they have completed a study, navigate to the Participant Replay view in analysis.
To download video data after completing a study, we recommend utilizing gsutil to download the video files in bulk. Navigate to your firebase storage to find your appspot name, then run the command:
gsutil -m cp -r gs://my-bucket/studyName/screenRecording .
Screen recording with think-aloud (audio recording)
ReVISit also supports think-aloud protocols alongside screen recording. To enable this, set recordAudio
in the uiConfig
:
{
"uiConfig": {
"recordScreen": true,
"recordAudio": true
}
}
When both screen and audio recording are enabled, the permissions page will include a microphone check.
Enabling audio with screen recording merges both into a single video file. This means that whenever screen recording is enabled, audio recording is also active, and cannot be disabled independently.