Interactive Product Demo Examples I Built for My Own Apps

Galleries of interactive product demo examples show you the finished demo, but rarely how it was made or why each step says what it says. So here are the ones I made for my own products, OIData and ShotDemo, with exactly how each was put together and what I would copy for yours. All of them were made in ShotDemo, the interactive demo platform I build.

What an interactive product demo is#

An interactive product demo is a click-through copy of your product, made from its screens. Each screen is a step with a hotspot on the thing that matters and a line or two of words; the viewer clicks the hotspot to move on. Unlike a video, the viewer sets the pace. Unlike a free trial, there is nothing to sign up for or install, so people try your product in a minute from your website, an email or your help center. And because every click is counted, you can see where viewers stopped.

Example 1: OIData in a minute#

OIData is my open interest analytics app for people who trade NIFTY, SENSEX and stock options in India. Its screens are dense, full of tables, gauges and charts, which makes it a good test: each step has to point at one thing and say why it matters.

How it was made. Six screenshots of OIData, taken in a browser window 1920 pixels wide, uploaded in the order of the tour: the dashboard, the market mood gauge, the option chain, trending open interest, the gamma exposure screener and the history of one strike. Each arrived as a step with a hotspot in the middle of the picture, which was then dragged onto the element the step is about.

Pointers and areas. Four steps use a pointer on a figure or a column header. Two use an outlined area instead, because what they describe is a block rather than a button: the market mood gauge and the row of the option chain nearest the market price.

The OIData demo in ShotDemo's editor: the steps on the left, the option chain step in the middle with an outlined area on the row nearest the market price and its tooltip, and the hotspot's settings on the right.

The words. Written by hand, one or two sentences per step, using the names printed on OIData's own screens so the eye finds them. They describe what each screen shows and never suggest a trade, which is a rule for everything OIData says. A welcome card opens the tour, and an ending card offers two buttons: one to OIData's website and one to ShotDemo.

The look and the sound. OIData's red for the hotspots and buttons, its logo on the cards, and a light browser frame around each screen. A Microsoft Azure voice reads every step from the same words as the tooltips, captions are hidden where they would only repeat the tooltip, and a step counter in each tooltip tells viewers how far through they are.

The video. Once published, the demo was exported once as a 16:9 video, without any change: the camera moves to each hotspot, a pointer clicks it, the words become the captions, and the voice reads each step over a music bed. It runs a little over a minute.

You can click through it, and watch the video, on the OIData example page.

What to take from it: six screens are enough for a first look at a dense product, because each one makes a single point. The demo's job is not to teach OIData; it is to get the right person to open it.

Example 2: ShotDemo's own tour#

The tour on ShotDemo's home page is a one-minute walk through making a demo, made in ShotDemo itself.

How it was made. Real captures of ShotDemo, taken at 1440 pixels wide and twice the usual pixel density, so the text stays sharp when the demo fills a large screen. They show a workspace with a published OIData demo in it: the dialog that starts a new demo, the editor with a step selected, its Design panel, a chapter with a lead form, the Share dialog and the demo's analytics. The views behind those analytics are real views of that published demo.

Hotspots that land exactly. The script that captured the screens also wrote down where each control sits, so every hotspot lands on the control it talks about: the Screenshots tab, the hotspot being edited, the blur tool, the Design panel, the embed code and the row of figures at the top of the analytics.

The words. Each step says what you can do there and why it helps, in a sentence or two, with one word in bold. The welcome card says how long the tour takes and how to move through it; the closing card has two buttons, one to make a demo and one to the prices.

The video. The same tour exported once, in 16:9, as it came out. Nothing was edited afterwards.

The home page shows it in tabs: the guided tour, the same tour as that video, and the same tour live with ShotDemo's AI agent turned on, so visitors can ask it about ShotDemo, typed or aloud, and it answers from the demo's own words and takes them to the step with the answer. A fourth tab holds the next example. The full story of the tour is on the ShotDemo example page.

Example 3: a website kept as HTML, in Hindi too#

The third demo on ShotDemo's home page was made from nothing but an address: ShotDemo was given oidata.in, visited its pages and kept each one as HTML beside its screenshot. So the pages stay sharp at any size, viewers can click their links, and the demo switches to Hindi, translated by ShotDemo's own translator, website text included.

What to take from it: for a public website or a marketing page, you do not need screenshots at all. And a page kept as HTML can have its words changed in the editor, a price or a name, without capturing it again.

What I would copy for your own demo#

These are the habits that made the difference, in the order you will meet them:

1. Give the demo one job. Write down who will watch and what they should know at the end. "Everything our product does" is a manual, not a demo. Several audiences, several demos.
2. Keep it short. The OIData demo has six screens between its welcome and ending cards. For a fuller product tour, ShotDemo's own guide suggests eight to fifteen steps, the length people actually finish, and splitting anything past twenty.
3. Use realistic data and one window size. Real-looking names and numbers make a demo believable; empty tables make it look unfinished. Take every screenshot at the same size.
4. Put the hotspot on the number or button that matters. A pointer for a single control, an outlined area for a table or a panel.
5. Write the line a colleague would say pointing at the screen. One or two short sentences, the screen's own names, one word in bold. "This is the dashboard" tells the viewer nothing the picture did not.
6. Open with a welcome card that says how long it takes, and end with one clear next step. If you want leads, put the form after the product has shown its value, not in front of it.
7. Keep it current. When a screen changes, replace that step's picture and publish: every link and embed shows the new version at once, and the hotspot and words stay where they were.
8. Read the numbers after a few days. If many viewers stop at the same step, that step is too long, too vague or in the wrong place. Fix it, publish again and compare.

How to make one#

In ShotDemo there are three ways to start: record your product with the ShotDemo Chrome extension, where each click becomes a step; give it your website's address and it captures the pages; or upload screenshots in the order you click through. ShotDemo's guide on how to make an interactive product demo goes through every step, from picking the story to reading the analytics.

It is free to try: one person can build as many demos as they like and keep one of them live, with a small Made with ShotDemo badge. A demo with every feature (no badge, lead forms, passwords, personal links, each viewer's journey and clean video exports) is $12 once per demo. There is no subscription and no price per seat. I wrote separately about why I priced it that way.