

Show HN: Requesting feedback on my side-project chatteranalytics.com - jrallison
http://chatteranalytics.com

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jrallison
I built this out of a desire for a simple tool to give insights on user
interaction/usability without the need to define and track a ton of custom
events for basic web interactions.

I started with a basic real-time stream of common events, used it in a few
projects, and gained some valuable information from it.

If there's enough interest for this type of tool, I'll build it out and launch
it.

The long term vision is to visualize individual user sessions.

Thanks!

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yahelc
Can you share what technologies you're using?

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jrallison
Sure, Node.js and Redis to track and store events. The front-end is a small
rails app which will manage user accounts, etc.

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paraschopra
How much back in time do you store data? 30 days?

~~~
jrallison
Right now, just the live stream. No historic data.

I want to add historic data in the future.

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ErrantX
That's a brilliant landing page; demonstrating the tool in-page is all the
description anyone needs :)

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pgroves
I would recommend detecting if javascipt is enabled on the landing page and
putting up an "enable javascript to see how it works on this page" message.

I had javascript off when I got there and didn't realize I was missing
something until I read the parent comment.

Also - the service looks useful to someone like me who isn't much of a web
designer but has a vanity site and a blog. I should say I am allergic to
javascript bloat that slows down load times, so you'd need to keep speed your
top priority for me to use it. I used to have adwords on one of my pages but
took it off b/c it was the slowest thing on the page.

~~~
jrallison
Re javascript: thanks, will do!

Re page load time: I'm using asynchronous loading of the scripts. This allows
the page to load fully, and the JavaScript is loaded in the background.

It's not completely cross browser, but speeds things up for people with modern
browsers. There may be a similar approach for adwords, but I wouldn't know for
sure.

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thinkzig
Please consider changing the background and font combination. The "DISCOVER
HOW PEOPLE INTERACT WITH YOUR WEBSITE" is very difficult to read and the light
gray on darker gray text on the left is almost just as bad.

I'm using the latest version of Chrome on Windows 7 if that helps.

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JoshTriplett
I appreciate the simplicity of "just paste a small javascript snippet", but
for more secure sites I'd like to have some documentation on how to integrate
this without sourcing third-party javascript from a page.

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rstocker99
This is something that I've wanted for awhile. Even better would be recording
session data your collecting and then giving a means to play it back so you
can actually "see" the what the user does. Maybe using Selenium or something
for the playback. This later feature would be killer for business users who
would likely find the current event stream a bit intimidating.

I think your right though. Being able to watch 20ish user sessions for
particular flows would really help you understand how to tweak things to
improve conversion rates.

~~~
jrallison
Thanks! That's exactly where I want to take it! It'll be hard to do right, but
definitely the vision.

~~~
ladon86
I've had this idea for a few months and really wanted to build it. Imagine
being able to record every user interaction, seeing their mouse move and
following them through pages.

The difficulty lies in replaying activity for web apps with logins, sessions
etc.

Anyway, great job implementing this, I think it's a great idea and you should
carry it forward!

~~~
jrallison
Thanks! You nailed the difficulty right on the head.

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tchock23
Looks pretty cool... I like the idea of the one-to-one analytics tool, since
other tools don't seem to do this (that I know of, at least).

However, one quick design point is the "Discover how people interact with your
website" header is extremely hard to read since it's basically black on gray.
Not sure if this is just my monitor's brightness levels or browser (Firefox
4.0.1), but I would recommend changing that up to be easier to read.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to checking it out more!

~~~
jrallison
Will do, thanks!

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benologist
This is really awesome. I just hacked together something similar for my
website _yesterday_ to show me guests / users activity on the site. Can't wait
till you guys open it up, especially if there's an API to stream it on our own
dashboards.

One note: after I filled out my info and clicked submit it kept the "what are
you looking for" field on the page.

Another note: I included the referrer which I think is going to be pretty
useful to know.

~~~
jrallison
Heh, I noticed that problem from watching the stream.

I thought it may be nice to keep it there, so people can fill it in if they
left it blank, or maybe edit it.

Turns out, people don't expect it to be there, and I saw several people
hitting "Send" multiple times to (I assume) get rid of that box. :)

~~~
benologist
Yeah it feels counter-intuitive.

Really like what you're doing, can't wait to replace my dodgy little hack job!

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bobds
Why do I have to enable websockets on Firefox 4? Perhaps using a websocket
library that is compatible with older browsers might be a good idea.

~~~
jrallison
Mainly just because I wanted to keep it simple for this test, and I assumed
there would be enough people who would either enable, or use chrome/safari to
get some good feedback.

I'll use the data I get from this test and decide whether I should support
older browsers or not.

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nikhilgk
Nice idea and implementation. However my first thought after reading the title
here and the domain name was that it was an analysis tool for Salesforce
Chatter (<http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/whatischatter/>). You may want to
check if there are any trademark implications.

~~~
jrallison
Thanks, I'll check into it.

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piranha
Heh, you're fetching some number of events from database and then grouping
them. I've clicked a number of times on page, and on reload saw just this
single event (x30 or something) instead of list of events.

~~~
jrallison
Good catch :)

Yes, for now it's very basic. It'll be better fleshed out when I launch it
(grouping on the backend instead of the front end, for instance)

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tow21
I think GoSquared (<http://gosquared.com>) have something of this flavour of
interaction as well.

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JGuo
Very useful tool. Especially with a large data set you can analyze where
people are clicking and the most common paths through a design.

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bgnm2000
Wow, love the design and idea! I might have to use this in my next app!

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sktrdie
not working with latest Chrome on mac

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josscrowcroft
Works fine for me. Ps. this is AWESOME!

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mrzerga
i am n00b in webdev, but i have a feeling this is pretty useful tool.

