6 ms·

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

49 points by jrallison 15y ago

jrallison 15y ago
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!
- yahelc 15y ago
  Can you share what technologies you're using?
  - jrallison 15y ago
    Sure, Node.js and Redis to track and store events. The front-end is a small rails app which will manage user accounts, etc.
    - paraschopra 15y ago
      How much back in time do you store data? 30 days?
      - jrallison 15y ago
        Right now, just the live stream. No historic data. I want to add historic data in the future.
mrzerga 15y ago
i am n00b in webdev, but i have a feeling this is pretty useful tool.
bgnm2000 15y ago
Wow, love the design and idea! I might have to use this in my next app!
ErrantX 15y ago
That's a brilliant landing page; demonstrating the tool in-page is all the description anyone needs :)
- Osiris 15y ago
  I agree. Having the demo right on the first page without having to signup or go through some other page is an awesome way to demonstrate the value of the product.
- pgroves 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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.
bobds 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
nikhilgk 15y ago
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/ http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/whatischatter/). You may want to check if there are any trademark implications.
- jrallison 15y ago
  Thanks, I'll check into it.
tchock23 15y ago
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 15y ago
  Will do, thanks!
thinkzig 15y ago
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.
- jrallison 15y ago
  Will do, thanks!
JGuo 15y ago
Very useful tool. Especially with a large data set you can analyze where people are clicking and the most common paths through a design.
tow21 15y ago
I think GoSquared (http://gosquared.com http://gosquared.com) have something of this flavour of interaction as well.
rstocker99 15y ago
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 15y ago
  Thanks! That's exactly where I want to take it! It'll be hard to do right, but definitely the vision.
  - ladon86 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      Thanks! You nailed the difficulty right on the head.
JoshTriplett 15y ago
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.
piranha 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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)
benologist 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    Yeah it feels counter-intuitive. Really like what you're doing, can't wait to replace my dodgy little hack job!
sktrdie 15y ago
not working with latest Chrome on mac
- e2daipi 15y ago
  11.0.696.68? 13.0.771.0 canary? ?
- josscrowcroft 15y ago
  Works fine for me. Ps. this is AWESOME!

49 points by jrallison 15y ago

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!

yahelc 15y ago
Can you share what technologies you're using?
- jrallison 15y ago
  Sure, Node.js and Redis to track and store events. The front-end is a small rails app which will manage user accounts, etc.
  - paraschopra 15y ago
    How much back in time do you store data? 30 days?
    - jrallison 15y ago
      Right now, just the live stream. No historic data. I want to add historic data in the future.

mrzerga 15y ago

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

bgnm2000 15y ago

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

ErrantX 15y ago

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

Osiris 15y ago
I agree. Having the demo right on the first page without having to signup or go through some other page is an awesome way to demonstrate the value of the product.
pgroves 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.

bobds 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.

nikhilgk 15y ago

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/ http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/whatischatter/). You may want to check if there are any trademark implications.

jrallison 15y ago
Thanks, I'll check into it.

tchock23 15y ago

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 15y ago
Will do, thanks!

thinkzig 15y ago

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.

jrallison 15y ago
Will do, thanks!

JGuo 15y ago

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

tow21 15y ago

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

rstocker99 15y ago

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 15y ago
Thanks! That's exactly where I want to take it! It'll be hard to do right, but definitely the vision.
- ladon86 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    Thanks! You nailed the difficulty right on the head.

JoshTriplett 15y ago

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.

piranha 15y ago

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 15y ago
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)

benologist 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  Yeah it feels counter-intuitive. Really like what you're doing, can't wait to replace my dodgy little hack job!

sktrdie 15y ago

not working with latest Chrome on mac

e2daipi 15y ago
11.0.696.68? 13.0.771.0 canary? ?
josscrowcroft 15y ago
Works fine for me. Ps. this is AWESOME!