Through the Sessions page, you can access recordings of every user session on your eCommerce site in the last 90 days. This incudes successful sessions; the recordings aren't limited to sessions where errors caused enough interference to prevent the user from making it through checkout. This is because errors are not the only factors that affect conversion rates. Factors like poor UX design, slow response times, and a confusing checkout path can drive up friction and dissuade your shoppers from completing their purchases.

While Noibu's primary function is error tracking, you can use session recordings to monitor webpage health and identify opportunities to reduce friction and create a smooth experience for your shoppers. This is especially useful after deploying a change or fix to a specific page. In the days following the deployment, monitor sessions on the URL, and note any spikes in friction or new performance issues.

Beyond release monitoring, we recommend using Sessions to perform a health check on each page on a monthly or weekly basis.

Monitoring Webpages for Shopper Friction

Friction indicates shopper frustration. Any time a button doesn't work, a page runs slowly, or it's unclear how to proceed, the shopper gets more and more upset. Even if they ultimately complete their transaction, they'll remember the difficult time they had getting there and may not return to make another purchase. As part of a regular health assessment, you should monitor your sessions for friction, and see if there's anything you can do to alleviate the problem.

1. Open Sessions and set a time period to examine. If you're monitoring friction after a release, set the table to show sessions recorded after the change was deployed. If you're doing a regular health check, set the table to show sessions recorded since the last check.
   
   
2. Filter the table by a specific URL or URL fragment. To pull sessions that showcase a specific URL, enter the full string. To pull sessions that showcase a page type, like all product listing pages or product pages, enter a fragment to pull sessions that contain any URL that includes the text.
   
   
3. Note the number of sessions with a high Friction Factor. This may indicate the presence of an error or barrier that's affecting multiple shoppers.
   
   
4. If enough high friction sessions exist, open the highest to examine it.
   
   
5. Check the timestamps in the session recording that correspond with session symptoms listed in the timeline–Rage Click, Broken Button, Circular Navigation, etc. The symptom may be listed next to a user action to give you a clue.
   
   
   
   
6. If you get a visual confirmation that associates the symptom to a specific element–a button, a field, a menu item, etc.–return to the Session Search and filter for other sessions that occur on the URL and include the session symptom, and review those sessions. If multiple shoppers are encountering the same problems with the same elements, you may have an issue to fix.

Monitoring Webpages for Performance

Performance issues are usually not visible in session recordings, but they can impact the shopper experience as much as an observable frontend issue. Fortunately, Noibu leverages Google's web vitals in session recordings to help identify opportunities to optimize your webpages. Web vitals represent elements of the user experience in a session that can be measured, quantified, and rated on a three point scale: Good, Needs Improvement, or Poor. Visit our Guide to Web Vitals for a breakdown of each vital and how these scores are quantified.

1. Open Sessions and set a time period to examine. If you're monitoring performance after a release, set the table to show sessions recorded after the change was deployed. If you're doing a regular health check, set the table to show sessions recorded since the last check.
   
   
2. Filter the table by the URL you want to examine, and search for sessions with web vitals that are Poor or Needs Improvement. We recommend investigating each web vital as part of a regular health check.
   
   
3. Open one or more sessions and enable Web Vital Events in the session timeline.
   
4. Examine each Poor or Improvable entry to see the value. This should give you an idea of how much the performance issue is impacting the shopper experience, and how much opportunity you have to optimize the page's performance.
   
   
   
   • Additionally, note what's happening in the session recording when the poor web vital score appears. While you likely won't see the issue in the recording, this can give you insight into what the shopper was doing when the performance issue arose.
     
     
5. If you see web vital scores in the Poor or Improvable range in multiple sessions, action a fix. Visit our Guide to Web Vitals for a list of possible causes of a poor score for each vital.

Visit our guides to Using Noibu During a Code Freeze and Troubleshooting Video Replay Issues.