Session Recording
A replay of an individual visit to a website or app, rebuilt from captured page changes, clicks, scrolls and cursor movement.
Recordings show exactly where real users hesitate, hit errors or abandon forms, which helps product and marketing teams find and fix specific problems that aggregate analytics only hint at.
A checkout funnel shows a 40% drop at the address step. The team filters Clarity recordings to sessions with rage clicks on that step, watches 25 of them and finds the postcode field rejects spaces.
Watching recordings is slow and individual sessions may not be representative. Recordings can capture personal data, so masking, consent where required under ePrivacy and GDPR, and disclosure in the privacy policy are needed.
Tools do not record video. A script captures the initial HTML and DOM, then logs DOM mutations, clicks, cursor movement, scrolls and key events, and the player reconstructs the session using the site's assets. Input fields are masked by default in tools such as Microsoft Clarity, with strict, balanced and relaxed modes. Recordings complement a Heatmap, Usability Testing and User Research by showing individual behavior in context.
Cybersecurity, Data Engineering
Hotjar Help — How do Recordings Work? (Advanced Explanation) — https://help.hotjar.com/hc/en-us/articles/36820006445585-How-do-Recordings-Work-Advanced-Explanation; Microsoft Learn — Clarity masking — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/clarity/setup-and-installation/clarity-masking
