Heatmaps, session recordings and rage click detection

Updated 2026-11-02

Analytics tells you what happened on a page. Heatmaps and session recordings help you see why. Both are built into Headstream, so you don't need a second vendor. Heatmaps work right away, and recordings take one extra snippet.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps work from the same script as your analytics. There's nothing extra to install. Open Heatmaps, pick a page and pick a device: desktop, tablet or mobile.

Each page shows three things:

• Click map. Where visitors clicked, laid over your page.
• Scroll depth. The share of visitors who reached each depth on the page.
• Most clicked. A list of the elements that got the most clicks.

Use it to answer simple questions. Do people reach your pricing table? Are they clicking something that isn't a link? Does the mobile page behave differently from desktop?

Session recordings

Session recordings are optional. To turn them on, add the recording snippet from your project settings. Recordings are kept for 90 days.

Your recordings list shows when each session started, its first page, the device, its length and a frustration count. Pick one and the replay opens right there.

Watching every session would take all week, so use the Frustrated filter. Headstream flags two signals:

• Rage clicks. Three or more fast clicks on the same element.
• Dead clicks. Clicks on something that isn't interactive, like a plain image or a line of text.

These are often the fastest way to find a broken button or a confusing layout.

Control what's recorded

The recorder masks all form inputs by default, so what a visitor types doesn't appear in the replay. You can also control what appears on your own pages. Add the hs-mask class to hide text, or the hs-block class to leave an element out altogether.

Do this on any page that shows account details or other private data. Review what your app displays before you turn recordings on for logged-in pages, and update your privacy policy to cover recording.

Use them with the rest of your data

These tools work best when you already know where to look. Start with a funnel to find the weak step, then open that page's heatmap, then watch a few frustrated sessions. You go from a number to a cause in a few minutes.

Headstream can help you pick where to start. Its fixes list uses signals like rage clicks and dead clicks to suggest pages worth a look. Any value it gives is labelled as an estimate. Agents can read this data too: the MCP server can fetch heatmaps, list recordings and pull a session timeline.

Once you've made a change, test it. Headstream includes A/B tests, so you can see whether the fix helped. If you've connected Stripe, revenue attribution shows whether the page is producing more money.

Clicks, scroll and recording events don't count toward your event total. See pricing for plans.