I am trialing ClickHeat. ClickHeat is an open source project licenced under GPL. It records the position of the user’s mouse on web pages, and creates a heatmap.
I previously tried a few different free trials of commercial heatmap systems. I dismissed a few as unreliable, and many were more than adequate. However, I’d like to have an open source project on my side like ClickHeat, as I could use the results as I wish rather than be tied down to a commercial supplier’s system. Also, ClickHeat will be free to use, although there will be time costs involved in implementing and maintaining it.
Heatmaps are a useful tool in user interface design and testing. While watching users use your web site or application in real life and real-time is ideal, heatmapping is automated and results from thousands of users can be analysed. Combined with metrics such as goal tracking with web analytics tracking such as Google Adsense, heatmaps allow you to compare different versions of a user interface and find the best to deploy.
I’ll update my weblog when I have some results from ClickHeat, and I also intend to write a brief guide on how to install and implement it.
You can visit the ClickHeat official web site here.
You can subscribe to my weblog using the subscription links near the top of this page.
Update: Further post available here.