Microsoft Clarity - Introduction, Tools, and Navigation

Using Clarity along with other tools creates a complete analytics package:

1. Microsoft Clarity is a website behavior tool and shows how visitors interact with a website.

• Understand what visitors are doing once they arrive on the website, such as how they click, scroll, and move through pages. 

2. Microsoft Clarity complements Google Analytics rather than replacing it, so often they are used together.

• Google Analytics provides the bigger picture about website traffic, while Clarity helps to understand the behavior behind those numbers. 

3. Google Analytics is better for traffic, acquisition, and overall metrics. 

• These metrics include how many people visited the site, where they came from, which pages they viewed, and how traffic has changed over time. 

4. Microsoft Clarity is better at illustrating behavior through recordings and heatmaps to understand what visitors are doing on a particular page.

• Session recordings and heatmaps illustrate where people click, how far they scroll, and whether they appear to be having difficulty using the page. 

5. Clarity should only be used on appropriate, approved pages. 

• Because Clarity records information about how visitors interact with a page, it should only be used on pages that are appropriate for behavioral analytics and that meet University privacy and security requirements.

• See the "Prerequisites" section above for information on evaluating your use case.

The Clarity dashboard contains multiple options and metrics to view visitor behavior on a website.

1. To get started click: Dashboard.

2. A single session represents an individual visit to the website.

   • One visitor may have multiple sessions if they return to the website later.

   • Sessions give a general sense of how much activity the site is receiving. 

3. Pages per session shows how many pages a visitor views on average during a visit.

   • Although a higher number may indicate that visitors are exploring the site, a higher or lower number is not intrinsically positive or negative. The ideal number of pages visited depends on the intended purpose of the website. 

4. Scroll depth shows how far down visitors are scrolling as a percentage of the entire page.

   • This can be useful if important information or a call-to-action is further down a page. If most visitors never scroll that far, site admins may reconsider where that content is located. 

5. Active time spent, also known as engagement, is a measure of how long visitors are actively interacting with the website.

   • This identifies pages that visitors spend time with versus pages they leave quickly. 

6. The Insights Card offers valuable data for multiple metrics:

   1. Rage clicks - A rage click occurs when a visitor clicks repeatedly in the same area within a short period of time.

      • This may indicate that the visitor expected something to happen and became frustrated when it did not. 

   2. Dead clicks - A dead click happens when a visitor clicks on something that does not respond.

      • Example: A visitor may think an image, heading, or piece of text is a link when it isn't.

      • A high number of dead clicks can point to a usability issue with the website. 

   3. Quick backs - Happen when a visitor opens a page and then quickly returns to the previous page.

      • This can indicate a page was not what a visitor expected, or that they did not immediately find what they were searching for. 

The measurements above are not automatically positive or negative, however, site admins can use them for clues about how their website and pages are being used and navigated. If unusual patterns are noticed within dashboard metrics, recordings or heatmaps can be used to further investigate a root cause. Continue reading below within sections "3. Session Recordings" and "4. Heatmaps" for more information.

Session recordings allow site admins to replay an individual visitor's interaction with your website. These recordings are not video recordings of the person, but are visual recreations based on actions such as mouse movement, clicks, scrolling, and navigation.

1. Recordings are access by clicking: Recordings at the top, then clicking a session recording in the pane on the left.

2. Recordings are helpful to analyze common behaviors, such as: 

   1. Mouse movement - Where the visitor moved their mouse or pointer on the page.

      • Mouse movement does not necessarily show exactly where someone is looking, but it can help you understand how they are interacting with the page. 

   2. Scrolling - How far the visitor moved down the page and where they paused.

      • Determine whether important information is actually being seen. 

   3. Clicks - Where visitors clicked.

      • Confirm whether people are using links and buttons as intended, or whether they are trying to click something that is not interactive. 

   4. Navigation between pages - The path a visitor took through the website.

      • For example: a visitor might start on the homepage, visit an academic program page, and then continue to an application page. 

3. Speed up recordings and/or skip inactivity by performing either of the following:

   1. Skip ahead or back 30 seconds.

   2. Change playback speed and click the play button.

   3. Click the gear icon in the bottom-right, then click the toggle to turn on Skip inactivity.

4. Recordings are most useful when a site admin begins with a specific question they are trying to answer.

   • For example: Visitors are reaching an application page but not continuing beyond it. To troubleshoot, site admins can filter for the page in question, review its recordings, and look for a common issue or root cause. 

5. When using recordings to review a website, it's best to avoid watching random recordings without a specific purpose.

   • Without a goal in mind, it can be easy to spend a lot of time watching recordings without finding any takeaways or potential solutions.

   • A more effective approach is to identify a page, behavior, or issue first, and then use recordings to investigate it. 

Heatmaps combine activity from many visitors and show where visitors are interacting with a page. Instead of looking at a single session, heatmaps show broader patterns across many visits. 

1. To get started, click: Heatmaps.

2. A click heatmap shows where visitors are clicking most often.

   • This helps determine if visitors are using the buttons and links they are intended. 

3. A scroll heatmap shows how far visitors typically travel down a page.

   • This helps visualize what percentage of visitors are reaching different sections of the site's content.  

4. Depending on the available view, Clarity provides information as an Attention map, which illustrates the areas of a page that receive the most interaction or attention. Attention maps help answer questions like:

   1. Are visitors clicking the button they are intended to click? 

      • If the goal of a page is for visitors to click an Apply, Register, Request Information, or similar button, the click heatmap shows whether that button is actually receiving clicks. 

   2. Are visitors scrolling far enough to see important content? 

      • If important information is located farther down the page, the scroll heatmap shows how many visitors reach it. If very few do, site admins may wish to move that information higher on the page. 

   3. Are visitors clicking items on the page that are not links? 

      • If visitors repeatedly click an image or heading that is not clickable, the page's design may give them the impression that it's a link. This can point to a potential usability and design issue.

Filters allow site admins to narrow results to specific categories visitors or pages. If filters are not used, admins could potentially look at thousands of unrelated sessions.

1. To get started with filters click: Dashboard, then click: Filters.

2. Filter results by selecting one or more of the following categories and the relevant checkboxes:

   1. Filter by URL or page - If evaluating a particular page, filtering by that page's URL is often the best place to start.

      • Focuses the dashboard, recordings, and heatmaps on a specific website or page. 

   2. Filter by date range - Looks at activity during a particular period of time.

      • Analyze visitor behavior after a specific event has occurred, such as a website change or launched a campaign, or to simply view visitor behavior during a specific time period. 

   3. Filter by device type - View results by desktop, tablet, and mobile visitors individually.

      • Understand if a page works well or not on a desktop computer, tablet, mobile, etc. 

   4. Filter by browser type - View results by what browser a visitor uses.

      • If a visitor reports that a page is not working correctly in a particular browser, this can help determine whether other visitors with the same or different browsers are experiencing the same problem as well. 

   5. Filter by country or location - Location filters provide a general sense of where visitors are coming from.

      • This information is best used in aggregate rather than to identify an individual visitor. 

   6. Filter by session behavior - This includes certain types of behavior, such as rage clicks, dead clicks, and quick backs.

      • Find sessions where visitors may have experienced difficulty. 

1. Use Microsoft Clarity with other tools, such as Google Analytics, and keep the following in mind:

   1. Google Analytics details how many visitors come to a site and from where.

      • Google Analytics is generally the better tool answer questions about traffic.

      • Use Google Analytics to understand how many people visited, where they came from, what pages they viewed, and how traffic changed over time. 

   2. Clarity answer details what visitors did once they arrived at the website.

      • Clarity is useful to understand visitor behavior.

      • Clarity shows what people clicked, how far they scrolled, and where they may have experienced confusion or frustration. 

   3. Start with a question - The most effective way to use Clarity is to start with a question and identify what question or issue needs to be understood first. 

      • Example 1: Google Analytics shows that 1,000 people visited a particular page but very few completed the action they were intended to take. Clarity can help investigate why they didn't take that action, such as they never scrolled far enough to see the button, are clicked the wrong item on the page, or had difficulty understanding the page.

      • Example 2: A site admin wishes to evaluate an admissions page and how it is being used. To perform analysis they use Clarity's filters to narrow results to that specific page, review heatmaps to see what visitors are clicking while on the page, check how far they scroll, and finally review a few recordings to understand individual visitor behavior. 

2. When getting started with Microsoft Clarity, focus on four key areas: 

   1. Dashboard - Look for patterns or possible issues.

      • See section "2. Dashboard and Metrics" above for more information.

   2. Filters - Narrow the information down to the page or audience you wish to study.

      • See section "5. Filters and Page Analysis" above for more information.

   3. Heatmaps - See overall patterns in clicks and scrolling.

      • See section "4. Heatmaps" above for more information.

   4. Recordings - Look more closely at individual visitor behavior. 

      • See section "3. Session Recordings" above for more information.