In a world getting increasingly competitive every day, with the ever-increasing popularity of the Web, companies are racing to make use of this resource to win or maintain customers. 1 of the main concerns of companies is how to understand user psychology & retain existing customers. This Website has already reported on smartphone & PC apps developed to track & understand user behavior.
By now, most of you out there will be aware of heatmaps. These are a way of data-representation in the form of a map or diagram, where data values are shown in different colors. All this is captured in real time.
What does ‘witness’ do?
Witness.ly goes a step ahead & offers animated heatmaps & real time analytics to capture behavior of users. It’s designed to work on single-page apps, Intranet sites; even password protected sites. Websites can use it to track user behavior as users browse through the Site, by monitoring the user clicks, mouse movements, scroll behavior, among other things. This user behavior then gets captured in detailed session heatmap animation reports.
No need for special heatmap dashboard – heatmaps are shown while you browse your Site. As you activate dynamic elements on page (menus, accordions) heatmaps for them are shown, too. You can also filter sessions included in heatmap.
The analysis can then be used by companies to understand user psychology, which Site Content was popular, what attracted the user’s attention, & things like bounce rates, etc. The information can be used to improve a Site & conversion rates.
The way the Witness.ly script works is that at regular intervals (20 times per second), any cursor, touch, & scroll position is recorded. The recordings are then queued, minimized, & sent to their server every 5 seconds. MutationObserver API (built-in into every modern browser). Its script works on HTTP & HTTPS Sites. The company uses Cloudflare (largest CDN in the world) with 120 data centers around the world, for broad reach.
Going by the recent controversy around data leaks, it is to be noted that Witness. ly has assured its clients that no “Personally Identifying Information” (or “PII”) is collected from clients’ Site users. Their data center operations follow Germany’s Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz or BDSG) compliance regulations. The data can be accessed only from application servers, & the company does not provide permission to outside sources to connect to the database.
The company is registered in Slovenia, & it collects and stores all data electronically in Frankfurt am Maim, Germany. There are no free plans to use ‘witness’, you will need to subscribe to a pay-for plan.
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– This is a startup profile based on publicly available material & not a review –
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