Session records might help you discover user problem areas.

What is session replay? Discover user pain points with session recordings

Understanding what your users are going through when using your online services can significantly impact conversion rates and income. Organizations can replay a user’s session using session recording tools to obtain insight into their experiences.

What is, however, session replay? Why isn’t statistical analysis sufficient? We Will address both of these concerns and how you may leverage session replay to improve user engagement and outcomes.

What is session replay?

Session replay is an IT technique that makes anonymous video-like recordings of user actions as they engage with your website or mobile app. Your analysts can then analyze user mouse movements to figure out what they’re attempting to do, where they’re experiencing problems, and what’s irritating them or making them leave their path.

Your teams will be better positioned to make significant adjustments that raise overall satisfaction by assessing evidence and experience—specific user actions and your site’s responses.

How does session replay work?

Consider a session replay to be a film based on actual occurrences. Users’ activities with your website or application are recorded using replay tools, including the pages they visited, how long they remained, and what they clicked on while there. These tools use this information to build anonymized versions of user sessions that your team can review. Replay tools record everything from clicks to scrolls, taps, keystrokes, and even the infamous “anger click.”

The document object model (DOM), a programming interface for web pages and documents, is used by session recording systems in practice. All elements of a page, like images, text, and links, are represented by the DOM as a collection of nodes and objects. The DOM, which forms a tree-like structure for all HTML elements, governs what users see in their browser window and the underlying HTML code. The body> part of your page, for example, is located on one branch of this tree structure, with any image> assets branching out. The head> element has several sub-elements, including title>, style>, and link>.

Session replay tools record all modifications made to the DOM during user sessions. These changes are called “events,” and they happen whenever a user interacts with your website or application, such as when they swipe the screen, move the mouse, or type text. Web components such as CSS are also captured by replay software, allowing it to produce accurate records even if your website changes. As a result, the user experience is wholly recreated video-like.

Why session replay matters

Replaying sessions has three significant advantages for your company:

Gained a better grasp of user annoyances
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Replays allow you to trace a user’s whole journey from the minute they arrive on your site until they leave. Teams can discover specific user pain points when they combine in-depth capture of all events that occur with in-depth capture of all events. Consider “anger clicks,” which are repeated clicks (or taps) on the exact location when a feature isn’t working. Replays allow you to examine these clicks to identify portions of your site or application that aren’t functioning correctly.

Improved reaction time

You may trace back activities to associated pieces of underlying code and minimize the time between discovering an issue and addressing it once you know where users are encountering problems. What’s the catch? You’ll need a replay tool to integrate with your entire IT stack to get this degree of information.

Replays also help limit the amount of back-and-forth between customers and your teams when problems develop. It’s a common scenario: a client reports a problem to your support team, but they can’t reproduce it exactly as stated, so they ask for further information from the customer.

It could carry on for days or weeks until the problem recognizes and fixed, costing businesses time and money. Session replay provides a shortcut: recordings of sessions show precisely what happened, allowing support and IT teams to see issues as they arise, ensuring that nothing loses in translation and that problems resolve.

The analytic context improves.

While data analysis tools like Google Analytics provide statistics based on user interactions, they don’t give specifics on what the user is doing and experiencing. Similarly, while statistics like bounce rates or cart abandonment reveal broad trends, they don’t reveal specifics about what’s happening. Are all user bounces, for example, caused by the same problem? Are the user journeys from the home page to the product page to the checkout page the same? To aid comprehension, replays combine material with context.

Use cases for session replay

​​While replays make understanding what’s bothering users easier and enhance IT response times, they’re not the only advantage. Repetitions are helpful in three different ways in practice: 

Increasing client loyalty

• Reduce response times: Visual replays allow teams to examine and handle customer problems rapidly. Teams can swiftly address issues by watching precisely what users are experiencing. 
• Recognize the user’s perspective: Empathy leads to transformation due to understanding. It is why: It’s easy for teams to conclude that a user error or a lack of expertise is the cause of users contacting or emailing a problem, but there’s no indication of the situation on the IT side. Session records, on the other hand, provide much-needed context for resolution. Teams can give practical guidance if users are merely misclicking, for example. On the other hand, Replays provide unambiguous evidence when users experience functional difficulties or a bad UI design that frustrates everyday actions. 
• Uncover areas for improvement: You can rapidly identify areas for improvement by evaluating many session replays. Even small changes, such as changing the color of a button or the font of a link, or shifting a web element to a different location on your page, can significantly impact customer satisfaction. 

Getting results in the workplace

• Optimize conversion rates: Conversion rates are an essential factor in determining ROI. Marketing and sales teams are always looking for new ways to improve websites and apps so that visitors are more likely to convert – and convert frequently. Replays give you real-time information about which conversion procedures aren’t working. Are clients losing interest in your product? Are they having trouble locating page elements? Is it possible that the call to action (CTA) is ineffective? Session replays allow you to monitor optimization issues as they happen. 
• The following criteria should use to filter premium customers. Teams may also filter premium customer sessions based on their interactions with your site using session replay data. Those who are more prone to overspend or convert in some way. It allows you to spot key data points that indicate high-end consumer behavior. Also, make sure they get more good employee assistance to encourage repeat business.
• Improve the onboarding process for new users. Employee onboarding can also benefit from replays. Teams can give specific instructions to help speed the onboarding process and recruit new employees—review sessions of new staff interacting with critical technologies to get up to run faster.

Increasing the accuracy of error correction

• Replicate bugs quickly: The faster you can duplicate bugs, the quicker you address and resolve them. Replays provide a step-by-step reproduction of what happened, rather than allowing users to describe faults via voice or text, so teams can precisely reproduce difficulties. 
• Determine where the mistakes are coming from: Session recording allows you to investigate and pinpoint the source of issues. Teams can trace failures back to features or code by studying the same action a user performed, rather than designing solutions that fix symptoms, by examining the specific action a user took and the result. 
• Recognize frequent patterns: In certain circumstances, errors are one-of-a-kind; users may have conducted specific actions that resulted in one-of-a-kind results. Patterns emerge in others—session recordings aid in identifying the differences. If the same error occurs numerous times when customers click on the same element, it could indicate an underlying problem that your team has to solve. 

When user experience meets business impact, you have a winner.
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See if applications are working as customers expect, obtain AI-powered solutions to address issues before affecting end-users proactively, and improve business outcomes.

What to look for in your session replay tool

All session replay software is not made equal. Some focus on specialized features like heatmaps, while others offer end-to-end integration that connects front-end data with back-end code. As a general rule, look for tools that provide the following features:

• Robust search and segmentation: To get the most out of session replays, look for tools that make it simple to segment and filter sessions based on event criteria and search sessions for specific events. 
• Asset caching is more efficient: Asset caching is essential for providing accurate replays. Please make sure you understand what your replay tool is recording and how to retrieve it. 
• Reliable data retention is vital for replay usability. However, it’s also critical to ensure that solutions don’t hold data for excessive time because sessions grow more valuable as the event approaches. Consumers want to know that their data isn’t being kept eternally. Many products now allow you to set preset retention periods, eliminating the need for manual deletion. 
• Easy integration: Some products demand a significant configuration to work with current systems. While these technologies continue to be helpful, the time and effort necessary to integrate, administer, and upgrade them can result in data fragmentation and frustration. Instead, choose solutions that interact directly with existing platforms and are updated automatically to assure operability. 
• Minimal infrastructure impact: The compression, storage, and processing of video data by your session replay tool can influence system performance. Client-side compression is a feature that can help reduce total data transfer volumes and storage footprints. 
• Pricing upfront: What are you paying for the replay of a session? Are the prices the same every time? Transparent? Before making the switch, ensure your provider is upfront about the expenses of recording, transport, storage, and use.

Session records replay and privacy

Privacy is an essential component of session replay. Companies must warn consumers in writing about how they use session recordings and allow users to opt-in or out on-demand if they use these tools. Furthermore, businesses must be open about the data they acquire and how they intend to utilize it.

Replay tools must-have features that do not capture personal information from users and hide specific user actions. Recording tools should ideally allow you to disguise user inputs — such as exact values entered in forms or checkboxes — while still allowing you to see how people interact with your site’s features. Tools that will enable granular input modifications depending on specific features, such as form buttons, tables, or data lists, are also worth considering.

Analyzing session recordings

After you’ve captured session recordings, you’ll need a method for analyzing them that is both trustworthy and reproducible.

1. Create a comprehensive recording strategy. Is it intended to keep track of all user sessions across all websites and apps? Or are you seeking consistent, representative interaction samples? Setting broad objectives can help to pave the way for success. 
2. Prioritize specific objectives that replays can assist with. Reducing user bounce rates, increasing time spent on the site, and raising total conversion rates are all examples. This stage is crucial because the measures required to attain these objectives differ. Bounce rate reduction, for example, begins with identifying difficulties on your landing or home page, whereas enhanced conversion entails digging deeper into product pages and customer checkout procedures. 
3. Assign actions to user goals. Because you can’t foresee how people will engage with your site or what precise areas they’ll pay attention to, filtering sessions based on parameters like total time spent on site clicks made or actions completed is crucial. This aids in the categorization of session recordings into goal-oriented groups. 
4. Recognize patterns. It’s time to look for ways to use replays, goals, and categories. Where do you notice the same patterns of behavior? Are users having trouble finding specific information or links? Is there a significant difference in sessions between mobile and desktop apps? Are there any frequent places where users abandon their shopping carts? Pattern analysis lays the groundwork for teams to take effective action.

From replays to root causes

Comprehensive replays can enhance conversions, improve the user experience, and provide insight into user behavior on the business side. Replays allow IT to reduce the meantime to recovery, improve user satisfaction, and save up to 80% in both time and money.

But that’s only the start. It allows teams to get to the bottom of problems and quickly generate replays without dealing with complicated configurations. Teams may receive insight into user experience across all virtual digital channels with session replay available for web and native mobile applications.

About Enteros

Enteros offers a patented database performance management SaaS platform. It proactively identifies root causes of complex business-impacting database scalability and performance issues across a growing number of RDBMS, NoSQL, and machine learning database platforms.