What are session recordings?

Session recordings are visual replays of users’ interactions with a website or app during a browsing session. They help businesses understand how users navigate, click, scroll, interact with elements, and where they encounter problems or abandon a journey. Tools such as Hotjar provide session replay/recording features for analyzing real user journeys.

What can session recordings reveal?

1. Navigation behavior – See how users move through pages and menus.
2. Click behavior – Identify where users click and whether they interact with important elements.
3. Scrolling behavior – See how far users scroll and which content they reach.
4. User frustration – Identify repeated clicks, hesitation, or difficulty using an interface.
5. Form problems – Detect where users struggle with fields or abandon forms.
6. Checkout issues – Identify friction or technical problems during checkout.
7. Dead clicks – Find areas users attempt to interact with but that don’t work as expected.
8. Drop-off points – Understand what users were doing before leaving a page or journey.

Example

If many users repeatedly click an image or text that appears clickable but does nothing, a session recording can reveal this usability problem. The business could then make the element interactive or redesign the interface.

Role in CRO

Session recordings provide qualitative behavioral insights that complement quantitative analytics. They help CRO teams understand why users may be dropping off, allowing them to identify UX problems and test improvements.

In simple terms: Session recordings let you watch anonymized user journeys to discover usability problems, friction, and conversion opportunities.