Session Playback

Session Playback is a powerful feature that lets you watch recordings of how real visitors interact with your website. It's like having a video recording of every mouse movement, click, and scroll that visitors make while browsing your site. This provides invaluable insights into how people actually use your website, helping you understand their behavior and identify opportunities for improvement.

Why This Matters

Understanding how visitors navigate your website gives you valuable insights that can help you:

  • Discover usability issues - See where visitors struggle or get confused
  • Identify broken elements - Find buttons or links that aren't working as expected
  • Optimize conversion paths - Understand why visitors abandon forms or checkout processes
  • Validate design changes - See how real users interact with new features
  • Improve overall user experience - Make data-driven decisions based on actual user behavior

Accessing Session Playback

  1. Navigate to the "Sessions" section in the page interactions menu
  2. You'll see a list of recorded sessions for your website

Using Session Playback: A Step-by-Step Guide

sessions playback table

1. Finding the Right Session to Watch

The Sessions page displays a table of all recorded visitor sessions with information about each one:

  • Session ID: A unique identifier for each visit
  • Timestamp: When the visit occurred
  • Duration: How long the visitor spent on your site
  • Device Type: Whether they used desktop, mobile, or tablet
  • Browser: Which web browser they were using
  • Referrer: Where they came from (Google, social media, etc.)

You can filter this list to find specific sessions:


Using Filters:

  1. Domain: Select a specific website domain if you manage multiple sites
  2. Page/URL: Choose a specific page to see only sessions that included that page
  3. Date Range: Select a time period (Last 7 days, Last 30 days, etc.)
  4. Search: Look for specific session IDs or referrers

Sorting the List:

Click on any column header to sort by that information. For example:

  • Sort by "Duration" to find your longest or shortest sessions
  • Sort by "Timestamp" to see most recent sessions first
  • Sort by "Device Type" to group mobile sessions together

2. Starting Playback

session playback viewer

To watch a session recording:

  1. Find the session you want to view in the table
  2. Click the "Play" button (▶️) in the Action column
  3. The system will load the page HTML and prepare the recording

3. Controlling Playback

Once the session begins playing, you'll see a control panel with several options:

  • Play/Pause: Start or pause the playback
  • Stop: End playback and reset to the beginning
  • Timeline: Shows progress through the session with clickable markers
  • Speed Control: Adjust how fast the recording plays (0.5x to 2x speed)
  • Show Path: Toggle visibility of the mouse movement path

Playback Controls:

  • Play Button: Starts the session replay from the beginning
  • Pause Button: Temporarily stops the playback
  • Resume Button: Continues playback from where you paused
  • Stop Button: Completely stops playback and resets

Timeline Navigation:

The timeline at the bottom of the player represents the entire session duration. You can:

  • Click anywhere on the timeline to jump to that point in the session
  • See red markers showing where clicks occurred
  • Watch the progress bar advance as the session plays

Speed Adjustment:

Use the speed slider to control how quickly the session replays:

  • 0.5x: Half speed (good for detailed analysis)
  • 1x: Normal speed (as it actually happened)
  • 1.5x or 2x: Faster playback (good for longer sessions)

4. Understanding What You're Seeing

During playback, you'll see several visual elements:

  • Mouse Cursor: A blue cursor shows where the visitor's mouse was moving
  • Click Points: Red circles appear when the visitor clicks something
  • Scroll Movement: The page scrolls up and down as the visitor did
  • Mouse Path: (When enabled) A blue line showing the complete mouse movement

5. Using the "Show Path" Feature

The "Show All" button toggles the mouse path visualization:

  1. Click "Show All" to display the complete mouse movement path
  2. The path will animate, showing the entire journey of the cursor
  3. Numbered red dots show each click in sequence
  4. Green "Start" and red "End" markers show where the session began and finished
  5. Click "Show All" again to hide the path

6. Taking Screenshots

You can capture a screenshot of the session with the mouse path visible:

  1. Enable the mouse path by clicking "Show All"
  2. Click the "Export Image" button
  3. The system will capture a full-page screenshot
  4. The image will automatically download to your computer
  5. The screenshot includes the page content, mouse path, and click points

Analyzing What You See

Common Patterns to Look For:

1. Confused Mouse Movements

  • What it looks like: Erratic, back-and-forth cursor movements
  • What it means: The visitor is likely confused or searching for something
  • What to do: Consider making important elements more obvious or reorganizing content

2. Rage Clicks

  • What it looks like: Multiple rapid clicks in the same area
  • What it means: The visitor thinks something should be clickable but it isn't responding
  • What to do: Check if elements appear clickable but aren't, or if there are technical issues

3. Dead Ends

  • What it looks like: Visitors reach a page, scroll around, then leave
  • What it means: They didn't find what they were looking for
  • What to do: Add clearer navigation options or relevant content

4. Form Abandonment

  • What it looks like: Visitors start filling out a form but stop and leave
  • What it means: Something about the form is frustrating or concerning them
  • What to do: Simplify the form, add explanations, or break it into smaller steps

5. Hesitation Points

  • What it looks like: The mouse hovers in one area for a long time
  • What it means: The visitor is reading carefully or is uncertain
  • What to do: Provide clearer information or simplify complex content

Troubleshooting

Session not loading? Try:

  • Refreshing the page
  • Selecting a different session
  • Checking your internet connection
  • Clearing your browser cache

Playback stops unexpectedly? Try:

  • Clicking the play button again
  • Reloading the page and starting over
  • Using a different browser

Missing HTML content? This can happen with older sessions if the page has changed significantly since the recording was made. In the SERP360.ai platform (https://app.serp360.ai/manage-sessions/), you can update the HTML for a page by:

  1. Navigate to the Manage Sessions page
  2. Find the webpage with outdated HTML in the list
  3. Click the camera button for that page
  4. The system will fetch the latest version of the page
  5. Future session playbacks will use this updated HTML

Privacy Considerations

  • Session recordings don't capture passwords, credit card numbers, or other sensitive form inputs
  • Sessions do not use cookies
  • You should still inform your website visitors about session recording in your privacy policy
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