One new one that’s doing some interesting work is Userfly.com. Their service works by installing a piece of code on every page of your site. Once in place, it logs all of the actions conducted by users on a website.

This may sound similar to what Google Analytics does, but it’s goes much further. It shows you page by page where a user goes, where the user moved their mouse, what actions they took with forms, and what they typed into form fields. For example, in the screenshot below from Userfly’s demo video, the user typed in their zip code, then clicked to the search field and started typing the word motorcycle. Each of the keystrokes and clicks is being logged near the top of the page:

This can provide some enlightening data, since you can replay how actual visitors of your site interacted with it. However, it also raises some privacy concerns for me. For example, wouldn’t the the keystroke logging feature also log any usernames and passwords typed into a site? A password may be obscured on the page, but if each of the keystrokes used to type it are logged, you’ve basically turned over the keys to the castle.

Logging Your Thoughts?

In general, I think consumers understand that websites are able to track that their visits and probably keep a log of searches conducted on a site. However, it may come as a surprise for people to find out that things they typed into a search box but never submitted could also be logged.

For example, what if a customer to an online bookstore purchased a NY Times bestseller, but during their time on the site considered searching for something related to diabetes but thought twice before submitting the query. Since the user typed “diabetes” into the search box but never submitted the query, has the user shared information or not?

A reasonable question to consider before using a service like Userfly.com is, “What would a visitor to your website’s reaction be to knowing that every keystroke is being logged?”

via MicroPersuasion