Frustrating user experience can be improved faster than you think.
\n\n If you’re familiar with our guide to{' '}\n
Ready to say goodbye to frustration? Let’s dive in!
\nA situation like this one probably sounds familiar to you:
\n\n You’re on a website, trying to complete a goal. You finally found the button you’re looking\n for: Proceed, Buy now, Read more – you name it.\n
\nThen, you try to click on it.
\n\nNothing happens.
\nYou click again. Still, nothing happens.
\n\n\n Click, click. Click, click, click, click.\n
\nA disaster you’d rather avoid, right?
\nYou get angry and keep clicking even more, even faster.
\n\n This is what we call a rage click. It happens when a user clicks (or taps)\n on a specific section of a website repeatedly, very fast, in frustration. You could also say\n that it’s a digital parallel of pressing the elevator button a couple of times in a row when\n it’s not responding. Overall, a rage click is a very clear signal that your visitor wasn’t\n able to achieve their goal.\n
\n\n Rather than being related to an emotional reaction, error clicks are based\n on technical issues. In LiveSession, we’re talking about an error click{' '}\n when a JavaScript error occurs.\n
\n\n If you’re not particularly tech-savvy and this term doesn’t sound clear to you, here’s a\n quick explanation:\n
\n\n JavaScript (often abbreviated as JS) is one of the most popular programming languages used\n to build web pages. A popular metaphor claims that this language was made to “\n \n make pages alive\n \n ”. When a particular JS element is not working, it means you’re dealing with a JavaScript\n error.\n
\n\n In this case, the user doesn’t have to click on something many times in a row. Just one\n click is enough for the tracking tool to detect an error. What’s more, sometimes the users\n don’t even notice that something is broken within the app. Most of the time, however, error\n clicks indicate that you need to prioritize the issue.\n
\n\n LiveSession detects error clicks and rage clicks automatically. You can find all the\n sessions with these types of clicks very easily – all you need to do is select a filter from\n the drop-down menu\n
\n\n If needed, you can use more advanced filters, too. Rage clicks can be\n filtered based on the CSS selector or text, while error clicks can also be\n sorted according to a specific type of error:\n
\n\n If you would like to read more about using filters in LiveSession, our\n
In this part of the article:
\n\n Let’s dive deeper to find out how to leverage rage click and error clicks in your user\n research strategy!\n
\nSome of the most common occurrences for rage clicks include:
\n\n Rage clicks happen when a text looks like a hyperlink (e.g. it’s in a different color, in\n bold or underlined) but it’s not really clickable. Oftentimes, the user is certain that\n they’re dealing with a link and keep clicking on it, expecting to be redirected to a\n different page.\n
\n\n When a user is filling a form and they got the postcode format or their credit card number\n wrong, they might not be able to proceed. If the error message is not clear, they will keep\n clicking on the Proceed\n or Send button repeatedly, until they realize that something is wrong, or worse,\n leave the page.\n
\n\n Sometimes users are expecting certain elements to act in a certain way (in this case, to be\n clickable), yet the website behaves differently. Still, the user is trying to follow the\n expected path – a desire path, also known as goat track or bootleg trail.\n This term is best explained with one of the most popular examples in the history of UX:\n
\n\n In this case, the user doesn’t want to take the established road and chooses the shortcut\n instead, just because it’s faster and more natural.\n
\n\n Desire paths can be based on the expectations, too. For instance, if the user goes on your\n company blog and clicks on the logo of your product in the top left corner, they probably\n expect to be taken back to the main page. If the logo is not clickable, they might try to\n click on it again, and again – and here goes our rage click.\n
\n\n A rage click may also indicate that a particular element of your page takes too long to\n load. What’s more, this phenomenon may occur when the entire page is loading and the user\n keeps clicking on the loading screen to see if something will happen. Keep in mind that this\n is more likely to happen if a slow response comes with an unclear message – the user\n gets lost and keeps clicking to get any kind of feedback.\n
\n\n Most of the time you can take action to improve the page speed, yet sometimes the fault lies\n somewhere else. In that case, we’re talking about false rage clicks.\n
\n\n It might happen that a rage click is detected when it’s not related to the interface design.\n We call it a false positive rage click, which might be due to a poor\n internet connection or a lagging device. It always pays off to double-check a recording to\n see if a rage click is caused by an external reason or maybe there is something that can be\n improved on your website.\n
\n\n As mentioned above, error clicks are logged based on JavaScript errors. When the user\n notices that a particular element is broken, they might start clicking on it repeatedly.\n This is why error clicks are often registered together with rage clicks,\n like in the example below:\n
\n\n In such cases, you can see that the visitor was frustrated and you can also see what kind of\n error caused the frustration. When you have complete information handy, it’s much easier to\n start working on the bug.\n
\n\n Rage clicks and error clicks detection is a handy feature designed to help\n you spot the most urgent issues as soon as possible. You don’t have to search manually to\n find the main points of frustration. Instead, your session recording app will keep track of\n them automatically. This makes work much smoother for everyone involved, including\n developers, UX designers and customer service agents.\n
\n\n If you’re not monitoring the frustration of your users yet, it’s high time you started\n paying more attention. It’s a simple and efficient way to learn more about your visitors and\n improve their experience – and in the end, this is how you make your customers happy and\n loyal.{' '}\n
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