How to use Hotjar to analyze user behavior on the website?

For a web solution to provide good customer experiences, it needs to be designed and optimized for users. In this it lies that we must observe and understand the actions of users, and one of the tools we use to analyze precisely this is Hotjar.

Sigrid Anita Rømma

Project Management, Consulting

Publisert

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Why analyze user behavior?

When we talk about user behavior we are talking about the way real users behave, or rather how they adopt your web solution.

When we analyze user behavior, it is about acquiring knowledge about how they use the web solution, and what their needs are. The reason for doing this is to be able to further develop and improve the solution so that users get better experiences and greater value from using it. If you do not understand what the users need, and how they use the solution, you are more or less working in the blind. How can anything be better when you don't know where the shoe presses?

Hotjar a good place to start to acquire this understanding. With this tool, you get access to, among other things, user recordings, heat maps and surveys, which all in all give you a good picture of how users are using your solution.

What is the benefit of looking at user footage?

With User Recording, you can see how real users are accessing and navigating your website. Depending on how much traffic your website usually has, you can quickly rack up hundreds of recordings that you can use in your analytics. Studying user footage comes with many advantages:

You see exactly what your users see and gain a better understanding of how the web solution is used
What users say they do is often different from what they actually do. Seeing how they navigate will provide a far better representation of reality than, for example, collecting only written feedback.
After viewing some footage you will discover patterns and trends in the ways users navigate
You will gain a better understanding of the customer journey. From the time the user first enters the web solution, until he exits — possibly until the journey is complete (e.g. when making a purchase or registration)
You can identify pain points, defects or bugs

What can be found out by looking at heat maps?

Heat maps quickly give you a visual representation of key areas of your website. Which buttons and links are pressed (and not), and how far down the page users scroll are some of the things that are visualized. You can use the information you get from heat maps for several things:

Do your users see the content you want them to share?
How far down the page do they scroll?
Do users click on those buttons/links you thought they were going to use?
Do users click on images and items that are not clickable?
Is the user distracted by elements on the page?

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Heatmap viser et skjermbilde hvor brukerne klikker, der det er flest klikk, er det tettere markering enn der det er færre klikk — Heatmaps or heat maps show where users click the most or where they lead the arrow.

What can be found by setting up surveys?

There is always someone who has an opinion about your site. Why not give them a chance to have their say? The surveys can be set up on selected pages of the site, or available on all pages, and can be used to gather knowledge about almost anything:

What are the users entering the website to do?
Did users respond to that what they came to do?
What do users think about the purchase process?
Was there something on the website that didn't work as the user expected?
Is there something the user misses?

Skjermbilde av opprettelse av spørsmål i Hotjar — The feedback feature allows you to retrieve information from your actual users, and get instant feedback on an action they have performed.

What can the information be used for?

The knowledge you have acquired about customers and their behavior is of no value if it is not used for anything. The reason we analyze user behavior in the first place is to be able to create the best possible solution for users. You should therefore use the information you have acquired for exactly this. Making small (and larger) adjustments, constantly improving the solution — little by little:

Optimize the user experience. Remove items or information that are confusing, work on improving any pain points, make it easier for the user to finish their “job”.
Make changes that can increase your conversion rate. Are there areas in the cart or checkout that prove challenging for the user?
Plan your way forward. Fill up your backlog, schedule and prioritize new functionality.
Schedule user testing. Hotjar is a good tool to uncover trends, and find out what users do. Hotjar isn't as good at explaining why. In cases where you want to get an answer why users navigate as they do, it might be a good idea to combine the insights you glean via Hotjar with user tests or user interviews.