In my previous posts, I reviewed some prototyping tools and I am going to continue to explore new tools. However, in this post, I would like to review a really good all-in solution for analysis and feedback platforminstead of a prototyping tool.
It is out of jar baby!
Hotjar is actually not a new solution, I remember their development activities in 2014 and invited to use their product by David. I found it a bit buggy at those days and it was focusing on the analytic side of testing. However, after revisiting Hotjar, I am very happy to see that David Darmanin team reached an amazing point with the tool that gives free options to anyone while being an all-in solution.
Hotjar, in current version, has two main sections: Analytic and Feedback sections.
Analytic Part
You can track your visitor clicks, cursor movement, scrolls and touches and watch them individually by inserting a script like Google Analytics. You can create heat-maps, recordings, funnel and forms.
Heat-maps are very informative for identifying main streams and golden paths. The image above is an example of recording session, it is very easy to use and tags can be created when it is needed.
I think that combining these tools can really improve your design iteratively just keeping your eye on behaviors of your users. A simple funnel for reservation was created for the example project.
Creating funnel and dropping forms are well-integrated and help me to have an inter-connected research mindset. You can ask concerning points to your users, however; the filling rate of these forms are not so much from my current experience.
Feedback Part
Instead, you can also recruit users for test and ask short polls. Feedback section has three different modules: Pools, surveys and recruit. In my current case, the engagement rate was better than drop-off forms. There is even recruiter module that you can invite a real-user to a more extend test for a voucher or a free meal.
Integrated tools and modules make Hotjar a holistic product that can be used for both analytics and feedback. It has a free account choice that gives you 2000 users per day. I think that is quite enough if you don’t have so much traffic and good for start-up ideas and new sites. Of course, you can upgrade your account to pro to have more daily sample rate.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, hotjar can create an anonymous bridge with your users. I think that it is a must-have which doesn’t change if you are favor of qualitative or quantitative methods. Of course, there are other competitors that can provide these functions but having all these modules in one place, how can I describe?Well, it makes sense.
Client’s opinion
First, they are a bit afraid of tracking all those things with just a script but they find very useful to see user’s action. They want access to reach these recordings for their own purposes, this was amazing and i think that your clients who have limited knowledge on web technologies will love this tool too.