In remote software demos, the biggest problem is not always the product itself.
Sometimes the audience simply doesn’t know where to look.
A button may be visible. A setting may already be on screen. The presenter may be explaining everything correctly.
But if attention isn’t directed clearly, people can still get lost.
After doing a lot of screen sharing and software demos, I kept noticing the same small UX problems.
1. The cursor is visible, but not necessarily noticeable
When you're presenting your own screen, you always know where your pointer is.
The audience doesn’t.
On a large monitor, a compressed video call, or a busy application UI, the pointer can easily disappear visually even though it is technically visible.
This becomes especially obvious when you say something like:
“If you look over here…”
You know exactly what “here” means.
The audience may need another second or two to find it.
That delay sounds minor, but during a demo it can happen again and again.
A presenter moves on to the next step while part of the audience is still trying to locate the previous one.
2. Moving the pointer is not the same as directing attention
A common workaround is to move the mouse around whatever you want people to notice.
I’ve done this many times myself.
Circle the button with the cursor.
Move back and forth over a chart.
Quickly point between two settings.
It works, but it also adds visual noise.
Eventually I realized there are really two different actions happening:
Navigation — using the mouse to operate the software.
Attention — telling the audience where to look.
During a demo, those aren’t always the same thing.
Sometimes I don’t want to click anything or change the interface.
I just want to say:
Look here.
3. Highlighting something can interrupt the demo
There are plenty of powerful screen annotation tools available.
They make sense when you want to draw arrows, write notes, add shapes, or explain something in detail.
But during a live product demo, switching into a drawing mode can sometimes be more than I need.
The workflow becomes:
stop operating the product → choose an annotation tool → highlight something → clear it → return to the demo.
That is only a few steps, but it changes the rhythm of the presentation.
For many situations, I wanted something much simpler.
A visual cue that appears when I need it and then gets out of the way.
What I wanted instead
I eventually wrote down a few constraints for myself:
- appear only when I deliberately ask for it
- disappear automatically
- require almost no thought while presenting
- avoid switching into a separate drawing workflow
- let me continue operating the software normally
That led me to build a small utility called Pointer Cue.
The idea is deliberately simple.
On a Mac, pressing Command highlights the pointer with a temporary ring. On Windows, the equivalent action uses Control.
Hold the key and drag, and you can temporarily outline an area of the screen.
The Mac version also has a Focus Cue that can make the active window stand out when the rest of the desktop is distracting.
There are no drawing palettes to open first and no annotation mode I need to remember to exit.
I can keep demonstrating the software and add a visual cue only when the audience needs one.
That distinction turned out to matter more to me than adding more annotation features.
Pointer Cue isn’t intended to replace a full screen drawing or presentation tool.
It is designed for a narrower problem:
helping people know where to look without interrupting the flow of a demo.
If you're curious, I put more details and a free version here:
https://lp.toybird.com/pointer-cue/
But I’m more interested in the broader question.
When you're doing a remote demo or screen share, how do you make sure people know where to look without interrupting what you're presenting?
This article was originally published by DEV Community and written by Masaki Iino.
Read original article on DEV Community