close this to read article
To understand how a user interacts with your website, you need to interpret the recording of their session. To view the session recording report, go to Insights > Session Recordings, and in the Session Recordings dashboard, select the recording you want to view.
NOTE: VWO relies on its asset snapshotting service to replay session recordings accurately. It captures the exact state of your website’s assets (CSS files) and stores it on VWO’s servers. Asset snapshotting is enabled by default for all accounts with VWO Insights. If a session recording appears broken or does not render correctly, it may be because VWO’s asset snapshotting service cannot access and snapshot your assets. In this case, ensure to allow VWO in your firewall rules. For more information, see Asset Snapshotting in VWO Session Recordings.
Interpreting a Session Recording
The session recording of a visitor can help you map the analyze their journey on your website. The Visitor Recordings UI has the following elements:
The session recording player has two sections - the video play area and the control panel. The video play area displays the recording of the visitor’s sessions, while the control panel offers you the functions to control the playing of the video.
The control panel appears at the bottom of the screen and features the following elements:
-
Video progress bar: Indicates the progress of the video. You can click on any point on this bar to play the video from there.
-
Play / Pause / Repeat: To pause the playback or resume it if paused. Once the video is over, you can replay the session by clicking on the Repeat button.
-
Adjust playback speed: Increase or decrease the speed of the playback - 1x, 2x or 4x.
-
Screen dropdown: Browse through the list of screens to navigate to a specific one and play the recording from there.
-
Visitor Profile: The Visitor Profile panel appears alongside the video by default when a session recording is played. You can collapse this panel by clicking on the >> button at the top or the Visitor Profile icon in the control panel. The Visitor Profile panel displays the following:
-
Visitor ID, device type, device OS, and device location. You can click on the Share Profile button to share all the recordings of the visitor with someone in your organization.
-
The number of sessions of this visitor that involved rage clicks and dead clicks.
NOTE: Only Pro and Enterprise plans can provide the count of dead and rage clicks.
-
Visitor ID, device type, device OS, and device location. You can click on the Share Profile button to share all the recordings of the visitor with someone in your organization.
-
- Events of current session - Displays the events of the currently playing session. It also displays the time and date of creation of the session recording. It mainly involves the dead clicks and rage clicks, apart from network, console, and unhandled errors that occurred during the session. Click on the dropdown icon on the respective events to view them in detail. You can also locate an event on the recording by just clicking on the corresponding one from the list of events.
-
-
All sessions of this visitor - Displays the list of all the recorded sessions of the visitor. Each of the list members features the time and date of creation of the session recording, the number of screens viewed by the visitor, the duration of the respective session recording, and an indicator for dead clicks and rage clicks, each as performed by the visitor. You can click on the Play button of a specific recording to view the corresponding session. You can also Share, Save/Unsave, or Delete a recording by clicking on the appropriate options from the vertical ellipsis (⋮) present along each list member.
You can filter the sessions based on rage clicks and dead clicks by clicking on the respective filters (Rage Clicks, Dead Clicks, and Show All). By default, the Show All option is applied.
NOTE: The filter options will be available based on the presence of dead clicks and rage clicks, respectively, in the sessions of the visitor. If a visitor has never performed a dead click or a rage click, the filter will not appear.To play the recordings successively, enable the Autoplay option present above the list of recordings.
-
All sessions of this visitor - Displays the list of all the recorded sessions of the visitor. Each of the list members features the time and date of creation of the session recording, the number of screens viewed by the visitor, the duration of the respective session recording, and an indicator for dead clicks and rage clicks, each as performed by the visitor. You can click on the Play button of a specific recording to view the corresponding session. You can also Share, Save/Unsave, or Delete a recording by clicking on the appropriate options from the vertical ellipsis (⋮) present along each list member.
-
Show Clicks - Enable this option to view the clicks on each area.
-
Skip Pauses - Enable this option to skip the pauses within a session.
- Show Mouse Trail - Enable this option to view the trail of the mouse pointer on the webpage. Each click gets numbered in a sequence to identify the journey of the visitor on the page.
- Autoplay Next Recording - Enable this option to keep playing the next session recording successively.
- Share / Save / Delete - Click on the ellipsis (...) and select these options appropriately to share (within your organization), save, or delete a recording.