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Another instalment of News Roundup. If you can attach a piece of news to all the symbols, leave a comment! There are 7 symbols - how many pieces of news can you attach to them?!
It’s getting even closer to Christmas now and I think we’re all feeling it - especially on our pockets. This year, it seems more ‘christmasy’ than last year. Last year it didn’t really feel any different to any other time of the year but this year I’ve made sure it does. I’ve been ordering gifts for people this year and it feels really good. I’ve been saving up since the middle of 2006 and have managed to save enough to buy myself a gift as well as gifts for friends and family. It actually feels rather good to buy gifts for other people.
The gift I bought for myself? A Wii. I’ve had it for just over 2 days now and I think it’s the best purchase I’ve ever made. Although my arm is slightly dislocated and in severe pain, I’m loving every minute of it. I’m glad I saved money - although I would have had a lot more if those at Argos, Woolworths, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Robert Dyas and BP would have employed me. But, it’s a time for cheer and merriment. 2006 has been a big year for me, much of my family and it has certainly been a year of change for a few friends whilst many challenges and happy days lay ahead in 2007 I hope.
Yesterday I was thinking about the diversity of talent, personalities and characters that are in the community of the Sixth Form. It makes you think about your future and there have been a few posts lately about out futures. Mine looks a bit bland, I have to say. But, let’s worry about that later.
Merry Christmas everyone! Oh, and Herbert will have a special treat for you on boxing day :P.
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Blogging, Internet, Programming, Technology
I’ve was invited to join the closed beta of the Israeli start up ClickTale. The service allows you to see a snapshot of what your visitors do and it records their mouse movements, actions and text input in real time. I was sceptical at first but although the beta service isn’t quite what they advertise on their main site, it has got most of the features and sure is something unique - and something I think could be very useful. I’m going to cover what features ClickTale provides, their uses and also the privacy issue that ClickTale brings to the table.
There is a lot of statistic services out there that track your visitors, where they come from, where they enter from and how long they stay on your site - some even go as far as to provide a heat map of ‘hot spots’ on your site that are clicked more. But what ClickTale does is unique in that it tracks the mouse movements of the visitor around your site, whether they right or left click and also what text they enter into fields such as searches. It records these movements and allows you to see what the visitor is checking out when and where - where do they go as soon as the page loads?
This is useful to site owners because in order to optimise your site or service you first need to understand the habits of your users. ClickTale bridges the 
gap between eye tracking and statistics for websites. I’ve found that when I’m browsing a website, especially a text heavy site, I follow my mouse with my eyes as a reading aid. Watching how a user navigates around the site, how a user responds to links or images can be vital information for any site owner not only in designing the user interface but other style decisions.
Having all the data being made into the movies of the users’ movements and actions is very nice but what ClickTale also does is provide a statistical analysis of the data it collects. Much like Google Analytics (although at time of writing much less advanced) it provides data grouped by country, language, browser, operating system, screen sizes and window sizes. Although the statistical analysis is not as comprehensive as Google Analytics or say AWStats, I think that the main feature of seeing what your visitors do could potentially be more useful and important. At the moment the analysis is limited to what I’ve mentioned above but I feel that a lot more could be done with the data.
The data could be transformed into a ‘heat map’ of mouse movement and actions - which parts of the page does the mouse move over most, which links are most clicked and which parts of the page are seen the most. Services such as Crazy Egg already offer a service that creates ‘heat maps’ based on where users are clicking. This is useful as it shows which links are used the most but tracking mouse movement could potentially be more useful. Mouse movement usually signals interest on the visitor’s side. In my own experience, if I’m weary of a link I hover over it first and see what it points to. If I’m not, I go straight to it. The behaviour of the user’s cursor can say a lot about how visitors perceive your site and provide suggestions on how you can make the user feel safer browsing your site.
Obviously, with the fact that visitors’ mouse movements, text input and mouse actions are all recorded, the issue of privacy arises. ClickTale battles 
some of the arguments about privacy by not recording password inputs, not recording any activity outside the web page, not tracking visitors between websites, not tracking any personal files, internet history or interacting with any local files or software. Also, only authorised people (people with the username and password) can actually view the recorded data.
Although the creators have good intentions for their product, it could be used in the wrong manner. Passwords could be captured via a normal text field, some crafty JavaScript and ClickTale. If the users are properly screened though, this could be avoided.
I love the idea of ClickTale and since trying it out on my own blog, it’s been interesting to watch the visitors’ movements, where they click, and how much of my posts they really do read! Although it’s been in closed development and testing since the early part of this year, it seems the wait will be worth it. In my case as a small blog owner, it has been interesting to see how the users interact with my bookmarks, seeing whether or not that use the lower part of the sidebar and also seeing whether or not they find searching intuitive.
Also, the fact that adding the service to your site is done by just two pieces of JavaScript means that site operators will find it incredibly easy to use. Once the user interface has been polished, I think that it would be a vital service for any serious website owner.
Oh, and a special thanks to Arik for giving me permission to write this review and including shots of the current user interface.
