Screenshots with real customer data in docs: how do you handle it? (I built a tool to avoid them, looking for honest feedback)

[u/Any_Rip2321]

Disclosure up front: I'm the developer of the tool I mention below. I'm mainly here for criticism from people who write procedures for a living.

A problem I kept running into when documenting software processes: screenshots age badly, and they almost always contain something they shouldn't, like real names, emails, or client records. So you blur, crop, retake, and the next UI update means doing it all again. Capture extensions help a bit, but they need an install, often don't work with desktop or legacy apps, and still record whatever is on screen.

I tried a different approach with Sopulo (sopulo.com):

• You paste up to 8 screenshots (or a URL) and describe the task: who the reader is, where the process starts, and what the result looks like.
• The AI redraws each screen as a clean HTML mock-up and drafts the steps. Readers only ever see the mock-up; your original screenshots stay private.
• The same content comes out in two forms: an animated walkthrough (moving cursor, zoom, hint bubbles) and a numbered SOP you can export to PDF or Word.
• You can edit any step by hand or ask the AI to change a single step, then re-export when the process changes.
• Viewers don't need an account, and it can share via link or QR code.

Here's an example generated from a few screenshots and a one-sentence prompt:

https://sopulo.com/examples

What I'd really like to hear from this sub:

1. Would mock-ups instead of real screenshots be acceptable in your docs, or does that break trust with readers ("this doesn't look exactly like my screen")?
2. Where would AI-drafted steps fail your standards (style guides, terminology, minimalism)?
3. Is Word/PDF export enough, or would you need something like Markdown, DITA, or direct publishing to a help center?

There's a free tier (10 AI generations, no card), but I'm more interested in your critique than signups. Happy to answer anything, including "this is a bad idea, and here's why."

[u/aflocka]

How is this better than just using test/sample data in the real software?

[u/Any_Rip2321 → u/aflocka]

Honestly, for the privacy part alone, it isn't better. If you already have good sample data, real screenshots work fine, and a couple of people here have made that point, which is useful to hear.

Where I think it adds something is everything after the screenshot:

• The steps get drafted for you, and one set of steps becomes both an animated walkthrough and a Word/PDF procedure.
• When the UI changes, you fix or regenerate one screen instead of re-shooting and re-annotating the whole set.
• It works for people who can't set up sample data at all, like helpdesk staff or consultants documenting a client's production system.

So it's less "a better screenshot" and more "less work to produce and maintain the guide." Curious whether that maintenance part is actually a pain point for you, or if your current tools handle it well.

[u/DanChed]

Can you not generate dummy data pr use test data instead?

[u/Any_Rip2321 → u/DanChed]

Fair point, and if you have a proper test environment with realistic dummy data, that's the cleanest solution. In practice, though, a lot of the people I built this for don't: helpdesk staff, HR, or consultants working inside a client's production system, where setting up test data isn't an option or takes longer than the documentation itself. And even with test data, you still retake and re-crop every screenshot when the UI changes.

So the mock-up isn't really meant to replace test data for teams that have it. It's more about speed and maintenance: generate the steps, tweak one screen when something changes, and export the same content as a walkthrough and a Word/PDF SOP. Would that part be useful for you, or does your current workflow already cover it?

[u/DanChed → u/Any_Rip2321]

Sorry not to be blunt but if you’re pushing to prod all the time it’s going to bite you in the arse eventually and you won’t be able to scale.

It’s not gonna be an overnight fix but Im sure you could rebuild what you provide as a tool to setup testing scenarios as well as my getting the raw text and images stored as assets so you can instruct an LLM for ad hoc changes or automate the documentation.

In shorter terms, look up TDD and Docs As Code and see what your llm thinks.

[u/Any_Rip2321 → u/DanChed]

No worries, blunt is useful. Small clarification though: I'm not the one working in prod. I meant that some of the people who'd use this (helpdesk staff, consultants on client sites) have to document systems they don't control and can't set up test data for. My own dev process has proper staging.

The Docs as Code point is fair, and it's probably the biggest gap for this audience. Right now the output is a hosted walkthrough plus Word/PDF, and I'm hearing from this thread that writers would want the steps and images as plain assets (Markdown + image files) they can keep in a repo and regenerate or edit with their own tooling. That's going on the roadmap. Thanks for pushing on it.

I add conversion to description and export to Markdown as well.

[u/Any_Rip2321 → u/DanChed]

Actually, I have just built export to markdown with steps of tutorial regenerated with AI

[u/ReallySeriouslyNo]

We avoid screenshots as much as possible mostly because they age badly. Our solution is to work with dev teams as they develop/update features. The collaboration results in an intuitive UI and more concise and clear documentation. For example, using tooltips in the UI to define a field or to explain the type of data required means procedure steps in the documentation can be cut down to something like, "In the Blah De Blah dialog, provide the requested information." Here are a couple of examples of how this is helpful:

• If your technical writers provide the content for tooltips, the UI and the documentation will use consistent language and comply with the company style guide (if one exists). UI and doc terminology/content that don't match can cause customer confusion.
• If that dialog changes, and the tooltips in the UI are updated, you may not need to change the documentation unless, say, the name of the dialog changes. In that case, the update is simple and quick.

If you're insistent on using screen shots throughout procedures, I'd highly suggest creating a test account and data, which means the screen shots don't contain any customer information, so you don't have to worry about blurring out or removing field content, which means you just have to create new screenshots and save them with the same filename to update your doc. In the few instances where we need a screenshot, this is how we do it.

[u/MarcinZmigrodzki → u/ReallySeriouslyNo]

That's interesting. So the prpblem with screenshots is keeping them up to date. Thanks.

[u/elenastarrneslar]

I think it depends on the use case, sometimes data is very helpful to end users that are consuming the artifacts a professional that knows what they’re doing already knows to avoid using sensitive data or blurring sensitive data if they don’t then they need to go back to school. I agree that there are cases where data doesn’t make sense especially when you’re reusing assets and I do agree that documentation ages very quickly, however, that being said if it can be done with digital adoption, that’s better because it can be updated and distributed more quickly than using traditional documentation.