Mouse Eye Tracking Service Free Web Analytics

Frequently Asked Questions

    • How do I interpret the results of my analysis?
      The design decisions reached by using the Mouse Eye Tracking vary depending on each site and the goals of the site. However some key signs that you should be aware of include:
      • If section of page has low activity consider removing it to simplify the layout of the page. This space could also be used for something that adds more value to your users.
        The Mouse Eye Tracking service shows you what is of interest to your users not what you think is of interest to your users so keep this in mind when redesigning your pages.
      • If a secondary page contains a lot of activity consider moving that section to your main page. This would remove the amount of navigation required for your users to reach their goals.
      • Reviewing mouse movements and time taken to move around a page you can redesign a page making the navigation simpler.
      • If you see users constantly changing a setting on your site (i.e. language) consider making that setting a default.
      • The page navigation mode allows you to understand the main flow of navigation on your entire site. Spending a bit of time in the page navigation mode is recommended as you will understand how users are using your site. This can then lead to redesigns that will simplify the navigation of your site.
      For more information, check out our blog article that gives a simple example of how one might use Mouse Eye Tracking to optimize the placement of Google adsense on a website.

    • What is the pricing structure of the Mouse Eye Tracking SaaS?
      PicNet’s Mouse Eye Tracking is free however, a small message “Mouse Eye Tracking by PicNet Software Development Services” is displayed in your page in the location where you place the Code. Should you wish to remove the message entirely, you need to upgrade to a premium account.

    • What is a premium account?
      A premium account costs A$2,000 per annum per domain (Plus GST for Australian Companies) or A$500 per month per domain. Volume discounts are available. To upgrade to a premium account, visit the upgrade page (prices are provided in Australian dollars).

    • Does Mouse Eye Tracking have a reseller program?
      Yes, should you be interested in reselling PicNet’s Mouse Eye Tracking service, please contact us.

    • Can the Mouse Eye Tracking service read my user's passwords (or other form data)?
      No, the PicNet Mouse Eye Tracking services does not read any keyboard interactions only mouse movements so no form data is ever sent to our servers. You can verify this by using something like FireBug to monitor the data being sent to our servers.

    • What is a session?
      The Mouse Eye Tracking SaaS records user mouse sessions. These sessions are an interaction with a web page that completes when a user:
      • moves to another page (clicks a link)
      • refreshes page / presses F5
      • closes the browser

    • I have noticed that not all of the user requests are being recorded?
      The Mouse Eye Tracking client script will try to never impact the performance of your page. Unfortunately this means that occasionally we do not capture 100% of requests.

    • Can the Mouse Eye Tracking client script impact my web page at all?
      Maintaining the integrity of the host web page was the number one goal of the Mouse Eye Tracking client script. We tested this on numerous scenarios and found what we believe to be a very safe and fast script that should at no time impact your web page. However we strongly recommend testing the Mouse Eye Tracking client script on a test environment prior to moving to a live site.

    • What is the performance impact on my web server?
      You should not experience any degradation of performance of your web server because PicNet’s Mouse Eye Tracking service does not interfere with your web server at all.

    • How can I use the Mouse Eye Tracking SaaS with YouTube videos (or any flash content)?
      If you try to use the Mouse Eye Tracking service on a page with flash content such as YouTube videos, you will notice that the navigation information is displayed behind the flash content. The easiest way to fix this is to add the wmode="transparent" tag to your embed script.

      Example: 
      <object width="560" height="340">
    <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/l25D4veZMj8&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param>
    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
    <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
    <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l25D4veZMj8&hl=en_US&fs=1&" 
        type="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
        allowscriptaccess="always" 
        allowfullscreen="true" 
        width="560" 
        height="340"
        wmode="transparent"></embed>
</object>

    • Why is my page is not showing mouse interactions such as interactions with menu items, etc?
      The Mouse Eye Tracking service does not show user UI interactions with the page being profiled. Which means that interactions such as Ajax or menu item interactions are not shown other than being displayed as mouse clicks.

    • What are the system requirements of the Management Console?
      We recommend a machine with at least 2GB of RAM and Intel Core 2 CPU or later. We also highly recommend using either FireFox or Chrome web browsers.

    • Does the PicNet Mouse Eye Tracking service work on Internet Explorer?
      The PicNet Mouse Eye Tracking service does provide basic support for Internet Explorer but we still highly recommend using either FireFox or Chrome. These browsers will give a much richer user experience.

    • I cannot view data older than 2 weeks old?
      The Mouse Eye Tracking service does not keep data older than 2 weeks old. Due to capacity limitations and the fact that the Mouse Eye Tracking service always displays your current page content PicNet decided that 2 weeks was a reasonable amount of time to keep active mouse tracking data. If you would like these restrictions lifted please contact us to discuss a self hosted (appliance) solution.

    • Why is my data capped to 500 sessions per page?
      Due to capacity issues we limit the display of page information to 500 sessions.

      When selecting the 500 sessions we always select the most popular resolutions. If you would like these restrictions lifted please contact us to discuss a self hosted (appliance) solution.

    • Why is my data capped to the last 5000 sessions?
      We limit the display of the last 5000 sessions recorded against your account. One account can have / monitor multiple web sites (domains).

      If you would like these restrictions lifted please contact us to discuss a self hosted (appliance) solution.

    • Can I remove or modify the PicNet advertisement from my page?
      To remove the small advertisement text from your page you can upgrade your account to a premium account via the upgrade page .

      To modify and minimize the impact of the PicNet message on your page, you can style the 'PicNetEyeTracking' span in your style sheet to best meet the look and feel of your page. An example style for the PicNet advertisement span is: 
      <style>
    #PicNetEyeTracking 
    {                
        font-size:10px;
        color:#9999cc;
        }
    #PicNetEyeTracking a 
    {
        text-decoration:none;
        color:#9999cc;
    }
</style>
      Please note that any other modification to the PicNet message may disable the mouse eye tracking mechanism and the service will not work.

    • I have a premium account but I can still see the PicNet advertisement for a fraction of a second and then it disappears?
      If you have a premium account you can remove the advertisement message in your Html you can also hide the PicNetEyeTracking element using CSS (see example). Both will stop this brief message from showing. 
              <style>
        #PicNetEyeTracking
        {
            display:none
        }
        </style>

    • Can I install the Mouse Eye Tracking server on my own servers - self hosted (appliance) solution?
      Yes, please contact us for more details.

    • Does Mouse Eye Tracking currently support SSL web sites?
      Currently the PicNet Mouse Eye Tracking service does not support SSL websites, this will be added soon.

    • Can I test Mouse Eye Tracking with html files on my local machine?
      Due to browser security restrictions the Mouse Eye Tracking service does not work with file:// URIs. This means that if you want to test with local files you will have to ensure that these files are accessible with valid web URLs, i.e. 'http://localhost/filename.html'.

    • How long do I need to wait to see my recorded data?
      At all times, you should allow some 15 minutes to see visitor activity reflected in the analysis and displays of the Management Console. This is due to the queuing of messages into the Mouse Eye Tracking service and the time taken to resolve the queue.

    • How does Google Analytics integration work?
      If you have an existing Google Analytics (GA) account setup for your website, this option will import GA Page Visit data to power the Page Navigation feature. Integration will not overwrite or mix with data collected by Mouse Eye Tracking and can be disconnected at any time.

      Integration is useful for newly registered users of Mouse Eye Tracking that do not want to wait for data to be recorded, instead allowing them to draw on existing data from GA. Additionally, Google's hardware resources enable a greater volume of information to be stored which can assist your website analysis.

      It is important to note that Google Analytics integration only shows the last 7 days of data from google. This is to optimise performance for you, the user.

    • What is Tunnel Vision?
      Tunnel Vision is a feature that encourages the correlation between mouse movements and where user attention is focused. It is designed for your closed testing purposes, do not use it on your live site! To turn on tunnel vision simply add (use-tunnel-vision="true") to your PicNetEyeTracker span. i.e:
           <span id="PicNetEyeTracker" usercode="PicNetPilot" use-tunnel-vision="true">
      To turn off tunnel vision simply remove this tag or set use-tunnel-vision to "false".
      Please note this feature does not fully work in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
      To find out more about Tunnel Vision, read Guido Tapia's (architect of Mouse Eye Tracking) software development blog.